The Minister of State for Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, has reiterated government’s commitment to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2025. The minister made this known while briefing newsmen on Monday in Abuja as part of activities to commemorate 2018 World Health Day with the theme “Universal Health Coverage: Everyone, Everywhere.”
Ehanire said the Nigerian Ministry of Health, through National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) set the mandate to achieve UHC by 2025.
He added that Federal government recognised the importance of UHC in National Health System as part of social protection architecture aimed at ensuring that Nigerians got quality health service when and where they needed it without suffering financial hardship.
He said “government is working to provide physical access to health care with the revitalisation of one functional Primary Health Care Centre in every political ward to serve citizens, even when they do not immediately have money to pay. This helps to preserve human capital and contributes to productivity and socioeconomic development, while supporting equity, especially among rural dwellers and the urban poor, leaving no one behind.”
The minister noted that UHC strategy and approach to better healthcare vary from country to country and that Nigeria had studied other countries’ models.
He said the lessons learned toward the goal of UHC for Nigerians yielded the National Health Act (NHAct).
Ehanire added that the National Health Act provided the guidelines for Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) National Health Care Financing Policy and Strategy, Primary Health Care Under One Roof (PHCUOR), among others.
