The Federal Government said that Nigeria was making improvements in access to medical care and the provision of quality health services to Nigerians, especially at the level of primary health care (PHC).
The coordinating minister of health and social welfare, Professor Muhammad Pate, revealed this while talking in the focus throughout the sector, the strategic commitment of the State with the interested parties of the north and southwest of the west states on Tuesday in Abuja by pointing out that after the reforms in the health sector, about 80 million contacts are carried out in the PHC centers every year.
Praiting the efforts of the states, revealed that despite the prevailing challenges, some states have registered significant improvements in qualified birth assistance, assistance to prenatal care and in performance data reports.
He said: “In some areas, the performance is marginal, but we are also learning of each other. In general, we are seeing an improvement in how states report data on their performance. Just to put it in context, each quarter are made around 20 million contacts with Nigerians through the primary health system that has now been renewed.
“That means around 80 million contacts. It does not mean 80 million people, but it means at least 80 million contacts per year, which means that the primary health care system, imperfect, is beginning to resume due to the reforms that this government began under the leadership of the president and with the support of all states, the local government, civil society and development partners, as well as the Nigerians, as the leaders of the United States Including the leaders of the United States, traditional leaders, traditional leaders, traditional leaders, what traditional leaders have to do, who have to have traditional leaders, that, what traditional leaders, that.
“This is an exercise to evaluate our performance for ourselves, before the joint annual review that we will make later this year, and we are very satisfied with the support we are seeing of all the states that actively participate in this effort, which is part of the transformation we are undertaking together with all.”
Pate, who regretted that the health sector had suffered many years of investments, said that although it would spend some time before the country's health sector is positioned in the way Nigeria expected, the current administration has made in the last two years, undertake deliberate investments that was “matched” by many of the states.
“We hope that annually, this joint review will be carried out, and the report of the health status will take Federal governments.
“But we have started that transformation trip, and we all have to continue on that path. We have to join hands with the federal government and the State, local governments also have to intensify. Civil society organizations and the media also have to educate Nigerians that health is something that should unite everyone because it affects us all.
“With the direction we have in the federal government and the states that are brought, we are already beginning to see the first signs that things are slowly improving, but they have to be sustained and we are committed to ensuring that Nigerians obtain the benefit of these improvements we are making in the system.”
National Coordinator, Coordination Office throughout the sector, Dr. Muntaqa Umar Sadiq said that the states performance dialogue focused on examining the central sets of indicators and allowing states to reflect on their performance and identify areas of improvement and collective action.
“We do this every quarter and focus on our important priorities, everything from qualified parratas, routine immunization, all important interventions necessary to crash in maternal neonatal and mortality by children under five years.
“This gives us a basis for performance management with states so that we focus on important notes, identifying problems and eliminating those problems to achieve our collective objectives.”
According to SADIQ, the different problems have been identified in each of the six geopolitical areas and their efforts supported to improve their ability to save the lives of women and children.
“For the first time, we have not only had dialogues observing the same sets of indicators with each State, but we have had a joint annual review and we are based on that to have these performance dialogues that feed their annual operational plans so that in the whole sector, when we say a plan, a budget, a report and a conversation, speaks of an aggregation of each state of the states.
“Therefore, the states have now identified their problems, the bottlenecks that prevent them from moving the needle. Some of the colors of the scoring boxes seen are red. So we have discussed why, what are the pragmatic factors that will take them from red to green and as a ministry, we are supporting the states in the reduction of those problems and improving their performance.
“In the future, we hope this translates into an improvement in the results of the population's health, where the facilities are more functional, the primary health care facilities are connected to the CMAL facilities where emergency services are working, where the treatment for malaria or the availability of maternal and child health interventions are available on the front line.”
The Special Advisor on Health to the Governor of the State of Ogun, Professor Odimayo Michael, said that current health initiatives were improving the entire health sector in Nigeria saying: “We are having a system in the country at this time that responds to the health of people.”
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