The Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day is celebrated annually on December 12th, aimed at urging policymakers to deliver on UHC commitments and encourage health system stakeholders to evaluate their UHC strategies. The Federal Ministry of Health in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) organized a health walk and ministerial briefing to commemorative the 2022 UHC day. The theme for the 2022 UHC day is “Build the World We Want: A Healthy Future for All”
Health Walk
This activity was in line with keeping global best practices. The take-off time was 9:30 am and the take-off point was the Unity Fountain, Abuja. The walk had over 30 people, media coverage, musical accompaniment, and road safety officials. The endpoint of the walk was at the Ministry of Health parking lot, which ended at 10:40am.
MINISTERIAL BRIEFING
Still in line with keeping global best practices. The ministerial briefing started 12:30pm with the second stanza of the national anthem. Opening remarks were made by the Director of Health Planning, Research & Statistics, represented by Dr. Uzoma Nwankwo. He thanked everyone present for their patience and wished everyone present a good time as they listened to the ministerial address.
The next item on the briefing agenda was the goodwill message from W.H.O country representative, Dr. Walter Kazadi Mulombo. Some key points from her address include:
- Universal Health Coverage lifts people out of poverty, promotes the well-being of families and communities, protects against public health crises, and moves us toward health for all.
- This year’s theme, “Build the World We Want: A Healthy Future for All,” emphasizes that to build robust health systems, we need equity, trust, a healthy environment, investments, and accountability.
- This year’s campaign comes at a critical time when countries across the world are rebuilding from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic while facing other crises like natural disasters and conflict.
- As we have over the past 75 years, W.H.O stands with all people, communities, and organizations worldwide in taking action to Build the world we want: A healthy future for all. We are resolutely committed to supporting Nigeria, and indeed all countries, inch by inch, village by village, to increase access to quality services, access essential medicine, vaccines, and equipments, and reduce financial hardship
- WHO calls on Nigeria to Invest, Integrate and Innovate. Nigeria has shown commitment and taken commendable steps towards ensuring that every Nigerian across the vast country has access to quality healthcare whenever they need it without suffering financial hardship. A lot more remains to be done.
This was followed by the next agenda, which was the ministerial press briefing from the Permanent Secretary, Mahmuda Mamman represented by the Head of Health System Division, Mr. Okendili. He apologized for the delay and appreciated partners of the ministry who made it possible for the ministry to participate in this UHC day along with other nations of the world as we all commemorate the World UHC day. Some key points from his address include:
- The pursuit of universal health coverage is central to the development of any country. The economies of Nations rely on a healthy and productive workforce. The healthier the general population, the more effective and prosperous they are. Sickness and infirmity deplete families’ resources, leading to earnings loss for both the sick and the caregiver. Ultimately, the revenue to the country from income taxes is negatively impacted.
- Government is conscious of this relationship between health and economic growth. This is why under President Muhammadu Buhari’s leadership, GCFR we have continued to invest in health as a critical sector. He reminded us that since this administration began, they have prioritized the removal of access barriers to healthcare for Nigerians through the robust revitalization of the primary healthcare centers and the implementation of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF).
- The Federal Government has consistently appropriated at least 1% of the Consolidated Revenue Account to deliver health services to Nigerians. As of October 2022, 101 billion Naira (about 83 percent of total funds to be released this year) has been disbursed for service delivery across over 7,600 primary healthcare facilities across the country. These funds flow through the National Primary Healthcare Development Authority (NPHCDA), National Health Insurance Authority (N.H.I.A), and the Emergency services gateway of the BHCPF.
- Our goal is to continue strengthening the health system to be resilient to shocks from epidemics, pandemics, and health crises. This put it on the path to regulating vaccine production in Nigeria and Africa.
The 2022 UHC day theme: “Build the world we want: A healthy future for all,” calls on all individuals to play their part in achieving a resilient health system. Citizens have the responsibility to hold us accountable and demand better services from the health facilities owned by the Local Councils, State & Federal Governments. Citizens should insist on better health investments from those who govern them at all levels.
-He wished to draw the attention of the Nigerians to the NHIA law that makes it mandatory for everyone to subscribe to a health insurance package. Corporate organizations organized private sector and small business owners should align with this law to enroll in any of the Health Insurance schemes. The Nigerian government will continue its efforts to reduce out-of-pocket expenditure, improve health system efficiency, increase government spending on health care and expand prepayment coverage and financial risk protection mechanisms
He concluded by thanking all stakeholders who have supported the efforts of the government to help Nigeria inch closer to Universal Health Coverage. He was confident that with collective action, we could build the national health system we want; a health system that guarantees a healthy future for all.
After his address, the floor was open for questions from press members. There are the questions asked
- Directed to the WHO country representative, “regarding the theme, what are the roadmaps to reach the people in rural regions and vulnerable groups? Is there any plan to incorporate these people into this theme?’
- Directed to the Permanent Secretary representative, “you mentioned we have about 6-7 primary health care sectors in the country. These primary healthcare systems aren’t accessible. Do you have a monetary evaluation system by which you monitor the quality of health services accessed by rural communities? How do we ascertain that the people in rural communities have access to these quality services?”
- Directed to the Permanent Secretary representative “On strengthening health care services. On the commissioning of Kuchin-goro health centre, a prototype of what should be done in about 10,000 primary health care centres. As we speak now, only Kuchin-goro here in Abuja has been upgraded. Every other primary health care centres remains the way it was. Torchlights are used to deliver babies, and drugs and other medical facilities are unavailable. That is why you see the tertiary health care centres overwhelmed. We talk about UHC, what is the possibility of achieving it when primary health care centres are abandoned?”
The speakers provided answers to these pertinent questions
- In regards to the first question directed to the WHO representative concerning roadmaps to get to the people in rural regions and vulnerable groups. She stated that most of these rural places, especially the Northeast, aren’t accessible due to the ongoing insurgency they are facing. Some of the healthcare facilities have been destroyed due to this. Nonetheless, they have outreach teams that go to make findings and partner with the government to solve this issue and implement the needed activities to achieve universal health coverage. Dr. Francis, her colleague from WHO, also added that the WHO has that standing support to the state to reach those communities even under tight insecurity situations. They have supported other initiatives like the State Health Insurance Programs (SHIP) that seek to provide healthcare to those who need them free at the point of use and prepayment programs in some states like Anambra and Imo states. They supported adoption mechanisms where philanthropists adopt top community members into SHIP, pay for them, and make them accessible at the point of use. At this point, that has been scaled up to many other states to adopt this mechanism to expand care to those who need it but can’t pay.
- The Permanent Secretary representative answered the questions concerning the current state of primary health care centres and observations of the Kuchin-Goro centre. He stated that primary health care centres provide services in rural areas, and not only Kuchin-Goro has been rehabilitated in the past few years as many of them have been revitalized. The ministry is currently doing an assessment to identify the state of primary health care centres in the country, and that will provide accurate statistics of the centres that have been rehabilitated over the years.
- A colleague of the Permanent Secretary answered the question concerning the monetary evaluation system to access care availability. He said that there’s much work done across primary health care centres, not by the Federal government alone, but there is a module centre shared across states for them to include the kind of services they’ll like to see in them. With the intervention and deregulation of the risk pool in the states, a lot of PHCs have been upgraded to be able to render and provide services that are within the benefit packages
The 50 minutes ministerial briefing ended with a closing remark from the Director, Health Planning Research and Statistics, represented by Dr. Uzoma Nwankwo. He appreciated everyone’s patience and stated that the journey to UHC is difficult and requires commitment from the government and the citizens. He concluded by thanking everyone for the work they’ve been doing to push our country closer to UHC, and he recommended that we work together as partners in progress until we see that everyone in Nigeria has health care without the barrier of financial hardship. He also wished everyone a safe journey to their various destinations.
