The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, said the Federal Government has revitalized over 4,000 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs), across the country from 2015 to date. Adewole made the claims at the flag-off of a special medical mission to Jiwa Emirate in Abuja by Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas (ANPA), over the weekend.
“Over the years, Nigeria’s healthcare system collapsed. But what we have done in the last four years is to revitalize the PHCs. We want to rebuild the PHC system. We are committed to doing 10,000 of it. We have done over 4000 and we are still counting.
The minister disclosed that on it part, FCT has done 225, Osun State is doing 332 and Kaduna about 250. I think we will really get to the 10,000 marks. “What we are also doing is to fund the PHCs through a unique approach.” We have a funding mechanism called the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF), which is supported by the World Bank Foundation and the UK DFID.
Adewole revealed that the fund would be sent directly to the PHCs. There will be no signatory in any commercial bank apart for the health centers. The money will be made available quarterly to run the PHCs, so that when it comes to purchasing commodities, rewarding the staff and making sure infrastructures remains okay, they will use that money for it.
“To kickstart it, we have $20m from World Bank, $2m from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to start this. He noted that the federal government has released a first-quarter allocation for this initiative. “What we now want is to rebuild the secondary healthcare system working with the state governments while the Federal Government concentrate on the tertiary healthcare system. The minister asserted that by the next few years, the healthcare system in Nigeria will be back in shape.”
