PPP key to quality health service delivery, minister says

The utilization of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) concept in pharmacy practice and other areas of the health sector will improve quality of healthcare delivery in the country, Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has said. He stated this in Abuja during the two-day workshop on best hospital pharmacy practice and Public Private Partnership arrangement […]

The utilization of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) concept in pharmacy practice and other areas of the health sector will improve quality of healthcare delivery in the country, Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has said.
He stated this in Abuja during the two-day workshop on best hospital pharmacy practice and Public Private Partnership arrangement in Nigeria.
The minister who was represented by the Director, Public Private Partnership of the ministry, Dr Bola Olowu, said that Public Private Partnership would bridge infrastructure gap and services and provide new strategic opportunities to add value to existing healthcare delivery system in Nigeria.
He said that for the nation to realise its economic potentials it needed increases in health investments from public and private sectors in all levels of services from primary clinics to hospitals to medical supplies and pharmaceuticals.
 He said many Nigerians confuse PPP with privatization saying that in PPP the government is involved and collaborates with the private sector while for privatization the sector or organization is wholly under the control of the private sector.
Adewole said that the public sector is not living up to expectation with strike actions, poor clinical governance, and lack of state of the art medical equipment thus encouraging medical tourism.
Registrar, Pharmacist Council of Nigeria (PCN) Pharm . Elijah Mohammed said the implementation of the provisions of the National Policy on Public Private Partnership for health in public healthcare institutions has been characterized with resistance, apprehension and suspicion by public servants, adding that their apprehension and suspicion posed a critical challenge to the success of the PPP arrangements.
He said in spite of the increasing popularity of the PPP concept, the PCN has been receiving complaints, and petitions that: operations of pharmacy department readily come to the minds of  the proponents of PPP to enrich their families and render the pharmacists redundant, and wherever the Drug Revolving Fund (DRF) has failed, the PPP initiative will equally fail , among others.
The registrar  said that about 60% of Nigerians seek healthcare services in the private sector and there is need to infuse the efficiency and funds of the private sector into the public sector to enable the health system deliver adequately in the provision of services