Dr. Salma Anas-Ibrahim, President Bola Tinubu’s Special Advisor on Health Matters, stated that Nigeria’s inadequate focus on primary healthcare increases the country’s morbidity and death rate, particularly from pregnancy-related illnesses.
Additionally, according to Anas-Ibrahim, the obstacles to lowering the number of maternal and infant deaths are still related to the PHC system’s poor performance, which includes, among other things, low coverage of community and household-level interventions, inadequate service delivery systems, and low healthcare coverage for interventions that could save lives.
She made this statement on Friday in Nasarawa State during the seventh annual conference of the Association of Nigeria Health Journalists, which was organized in association with the World Health Organization.
According to her, the PHC is the fulcrum for a resilient health system and should be structured to be able to deliver services that will support the attainment of UHC and guarantee health security.
She said, “In Nigeria however, the PHC level of care has received the least attention and continues to add to the burden of morbidity and mortality especially due to pregnancy-related conditions making it the weakest link of the health service delivery system.
“In the integrated system that we are promoting, our aspiration is to ensure that as soon as a pregnant woman visits a healthcare facility, the quality and level of care she requires to deliver a healthy child is assured including the payment for the services she would receive, ensuring that she is covered under one form of health insurance or the other.
“The role of the PHC in improving access to healthcare towards the attainment of UHC in a holistic, comprehensive and sustainable manner that would impact on the productive potential of the people for desirous national growth and development of the country.”
The presidential aide pointed out that Nigeria, which makes up only 3% of the global population, contributes to the burden of maternal and newborn deaths worldwide and accounts for roughly 30% of the world’s failure to eradicate mother-to-child HIV transmission.
According to her, a number of socioeconomic issues contribute to avoidable illnesses and fatalities, such as poverty and limited access to water, sanitation, and hygiene; long travel times to medical facilities and lack of transportation; and generally poor health-seeking behavior brought on by sociocultural and low literacy.
“The success of the interventions will be built on strong accountability mechanisms and renewed partnership models between the government, development partners, private sector, Civil Society Organisations, the community and the media,” she added.
