Kuni Tyessi, Abuja
House of Representatives Committee Chairman on Health, Mohammed Usman has reiterated that budget for health must be increased in order to face squarely the challenges inherent in the health sector, especially as it relates to family planning.
Usman stated this in Abuja reecently at Every Woman, Every Child seminar which was organised by Community Health and Research Initiative (CHR) and with the theme “Building a common agenda: drive towards achieving Nigeria’s EWEC and family planning 2020 commitments.
He said the basic healthcare provision fund was being implemented; however health indices in the country have been relatively poor in the face of its entire growing population.
He said: “Hopefully, in 2019 we can convince the government to increase the budget as we must work collectively. Compared to other countries, we are not doing well. There is the need for us to meet the target and stay committed.
“Most of the problems in Nigeria are implementation challenges and we must change this attitude. Family planning commitments are there and with few years to 2020, I am not sure we can achieve up to 50 per cent of the family planning 2020.
“This year, we were able to push the executives to implement the basic healthcare provision fund of the NHAct. There are still issues with the Basic Health Care Provision Fund as it is not captured in the statutory fund,” he added.
