Rallying global support for Nigeria’s healthcare

The report also stated that at the national level, it would require about $3 billion (N468 billion) to fix the health system while the bankable financing need for Primary Health Institutions (PHIs) alone was estimated at $1.5 billion.At the recently concluded World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa, Friends of the Global Fund Africa (Friends Africa), […]

The report also stated that at the national level, it would require about $3 billion (N468 billion) to fix the health system while the bankable financing need for Primary Health Institutions (PHIs) alone was estimated at $1.5 billion.
At the recently concluded World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa, Friends of the Global Fund Africa (Friends Africa), a pan-African organization which works to mobilize strategic political and financial support for the fight against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Access Bank Plc and Global Fund staged the Africa Health Innovation meeting on the sidelines to enlist African health, particularly the Nigerian health sector, financing on the international scene.
Meanwhile, most of Africa’s basic health system, particularly in Nigeria, remain a challenge having suffered decades of neglect and lack of proper financing – a situation that has resulted in avoidable deaths and massive capital flight to several destinations of the world as people sought better medical care.
The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) recently estimated that the country could be losing close to $800 million (N125 billion) annually to medical tourism as statistics suggested about 5,000 Nigerians find their way to India, America, Germany and other countries annually for medical tourism.
But sourcing the huge funding requirement to help fix the health system remained a challenge for governments amid other pressing needs, including basic infrastructure in most African regions. Interestingly, government has admitted it could not fix the problems alone and had solicited the participation of the private sector.
However, concerned with the deteriorating condition of the health sector and the need to take proactive steps in addressing the challenge, Access Bank, Friends Africa – a brainchild of the former Chief Executive, Access Bank, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, as well as the Global Fund launched an initiative to mobilise awareness and innovative financing by all stakeholders to fix the rot in Africa’s health system.
At the health summit themed: “Leapfrogging Development Challenges to Transform Africa’s Health” on the occasion of the WEF Africa 2014, Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who declared the meeting opened, said the federal government would sustain and improve funding for health interventions despite security challenges in the country.
The minister who cautioned that Overseas Development Funds were experiencing a decline charged African countries to seek new means of financing health care services.
Back home, she said proceeds from the partial oil subsidy scheme were already being ploughed back into health care services.
“The results that are coming in shows that things are working; we have trained over 7,000 health workers that are going into the rural areas, part of this money is being used in a creative way partly for conditional cash transfers to entice families and women to have prenatal care, have skilled birth attendants, and immunize their children among others,” said Okonjo-Iweala.
 “We are committed to it, and we are going to continue to push that hundred billion dollars a year for the next five years equivalent for our programmes, and we have also promised incremental resources for our Polio, HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria over and above what we were doing before.”
Aig-Imoukhuede, who is the chairman of board of the Friends Africa, said there had been increasing concerns globally over the dearth in innovative technologies and the weakening of the African health system from the impact of an expanding continent with less sophisticated technology at its disposal.
He said an effective internal cooperation was needed to generate innovative health financing which would minimize threats to the future of Africa.
According to him, the gathering was mandated to “join hands to seek outlines and solutions that will help uplift and improve health delivery in Africa.”
Group Managing Director/Chief Executive, Access Bank Plc, Mr. Herbert Wigwe, said the campaign was already achieving meaningful results as there had been improved awareness toward the health challenge.
He said: “I think the problem has been that of understanding a common cause but what you now see is that it is becoming much more topical – people realize how serious the issue is.”
Wigwe said resolving the health issues require support from the private sector, government and all individuals.
According to him, Access Bank has led efforts in galvanising the private sector – having led an initial campaign “gift from Africa” in 2010 “where we led several private sector institutions including Dangote to raise money to support the fight against HIV, tuberculosis among others.”
He added that that singular effort brought in about $5 million.
The managing director also disclosed efforts of the bank to sanitize the diagnostic section of the health delivery system which had often being a major problem.