Confronting MDGs health targets, as countdown continues

Aimed with this important job the secretary general’s special envoy for financing the health MDGs, Ray Chambers was in Nigeria to push for better finances for health, all in the hope of seeing that the health related MDGs are met.The MDGs for health, are the goals 4, 5 and 6 which represent reducing child mortality, […]

Aimed with this important job the secretary general’s special envoy for financing the health MDGs, Ray Chambers was in Nigeria to push for better finances for health, all in the hope of seeing that the health related MDGs are met.
The MDGs for health, are the goals 4, 5 and 6 which represent reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
According to the UN special envoy, three of the eight targets relate to health and include halving child deaths from 800,000 to 400,000 and shooting for zero at some point.
In talks with health authorities on his three-day visit to Nigeria, he said both recipient and donor countries would have to “keep their parts up and optimise the likelihood of reaching these goals.”
“Everybody has to begin executing yesterday. We don’t have time to change plans. We don’t have time for new inventions or reinventing the wheel. We have to be out there executing with all the forces available, with the funding, with the commodities,” he emphasized when he visited, the health minister,  Onyebuchi Chukwu in Abuja.
Chambers said Nigeria was on the “cusp of what may be one of the most effective hardest working efforts ever.”
Chambers noted that though most people were sceptical of Nigeria’s ability to achieve the MDGs goal, according to him these goals can be met with super human efforts and commitment from partners.
He added that late Yar’adua the former president of Nigeria, had in a speech when he was alive said, “where Nigeria goes so goes Africa. He emphasized that Nigeria is the determinant for the successes in Africa and so efforts must be intensified to achieve the health MDGs.
The Minister of Health, Christian Onyebuchi Chukwu  however had his own opinions about achieving these goals, he hy-lighted that for instance Nigeria would need a N100billion ($650million) to achieve the MDGs.
Speaking at a meeting with the United Nations Secretary General’s special envoy on financing the health MDGs and malaria with development partners in the health sector, he revealed that so far the government has been able to gather $258million commitments but still had a whooping gap of about $392 million before any meaniful achievement can be noticed.
According to him the money will be expended in six priority areas which he said include maximising impact in community based programmes, strengthening health system, maximising utilization of primary health care, scaling up of health workers and access of life saving commodities.
He lamented that though some level of progress has been made in the health indices, especially in reducing maternal and infant mortality, people still continue to quote health data that are from 2008 saying that such undermines the efforts of the country and development partners.
Chukwu said Nigeria would have to look at “peculiar spots” with shortfalls as the MDG deadline approaches in 2015, especially its health workforce.
“Money is important, but one major area is having human resources to work the plans we have introduced,” he said.
“We need to see what we can do to have more people engaged in healthcare.”
The truth is that most of the states do not have human resources of health. We have uneven distribution of human resources and right now there is even migration of these personnel.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) Country Representative to Nigeria, Dr Rui Gama Vaz,  who commended the federal government for its work in the health-related MDGs, said a lot of work needed to be done.
He said the problem was that of implementation and defined priorities, saying, “But the key message and what should be done is to focus at the local level, adding that Nigeria needs to push because time was running out.
According to him great commitment has been shown at the federal level but a deliberate has to be put in place to target the state and local governments, which he emphasized are in dire need to assistance.
The country representative of the United Nations Population Fund, (UNFPA) Mrs. Victoria Afua Akyeampong, noted that special attention has to be given to child and maternal deaths, saying, “we need to look for strategy ways to make our women use the health facilities in their areas, even as we look at how to ensure that these areas have health personnel to man them.”