Only 2, 500 of the 30,000 primary healthcare
facilities across the country are functioning, the Acting Executive Secretary,
National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Mr Olufemi Akingbade, has said.
He said in Abuja yesterday
when he led some senior officials of the agency on a visit to the Nigerian
Communication Satellites Limited (NIGCOMSAT) that the 27, 500 facilities which
should cater for more than 100 million poor Nigerians were without any health
official and the facilities there were rotting away.
The implication of this, he
said, was that many poor people who should be enjoying health care services
from the government facilities had been cut off.
This is also hindering the
universal health coverage programme of the federal government, he added.
"It is not fault of this current
government; a lot of considerations in the past had been on the secondary and
tertiary health facilities. We now see that a lot of people that need health
care facilities actually need basic health care facilities. And so much focus
had not been made on this sector after the era of Olukoye Ransome-Kuti: a lot
of things had been neglected at the primary health level, " he said.
He said the NHIS team visited
NIGCOMSAT to seek partnership on how to use mapping and satellite
communications to reach and monitor primary health care facilities in the
remote areas of the country.
NIGCOMSAT Managing Director, Ms Abimbola Alale,
said the agency could monitor health facilities in rural areas 24 hours a day.
daily trust reportage.
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