Alleged Plan to Privatise Health Institutions Suicidal, NLC Tells FG

•Demands 15% budgetary provision for health sector

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) yesterday opposed alleged plan to privatise healthcare institutions in the country.

The NLC said it “would be tantamount to mass suicide to attempt to privatise public healthcare in Nigeria.”

The NLC stated this in a position paper submitted to the federal government taskforce on healthcare reform headed by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.

NLC President, Ayuba Wabba said government should halt any plan to privatise healthcare institutions, saying it would compromise the government’s responsibility to provide health services to the citizens.

It, however, recommended a national development reform of the public financial management system aimed at strengthening budget design, allocation, and spending.

It also demanded that government should increase funding to health sector to at least 15 per cent in line with Abuja Declaration on Health starting with annual increment of two per cent.

While justifying its position, the NLC stated that that Article 25 of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) described Healthcare as a fundamental human right which is indispensable to the enjoyment of other rights.

In addition, the NLC said the right to effective and affordable healthcare was further reinforced in the International Covenant on Social Economic and Cultural Rights (CSECR), a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16th December 1966.

It further noted that Article 12 of the CSECR recognised the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

In a, “country where the greater percent of her citizens are living below poverty line,” the NLC insisted that privatising healthcare would further worsen their situation, and would put a nail to the government realising its targets on universal health coverage.

The congress also said labour would like to work with the government in the design and implementation of a public private participation in the health services delivery in such a way that the workers and their families are able to access and afford available health care service from primary to tertiary health care with human dignity.

“We will therefore need to examine the existing National Health Act and other policies and programs to enable us steer towards solutions that are workable with implementation strategies.

“It would be tantamount to mass suicide to attempt to privatise public healthcare in Nigeria especially in light of our foregoing submissions. We therefore demand a halt to the idea of a health sector reform that allows for free entry and exit into the health sector yet compromising government’s responsibility to provide health services to its citizens and especially the 87 million Nigerians who are living under $2 per day,” it said.

NLC said budgeting more funds for upgrade of the Tertiary Healthcare Sub-sector would enable it carry out the function of providing healthcare, producing skilled personnel, and carrying out research that can add social and economic value to Nigeria.

The labour movement suggested an overhaul the National Health Insurance Scheme to expand the coverage and to capture more people especially women in the informal sector and all retirees above the age of 60 years and above.

In addition, the NLC stated that any meaningful reform should prioritise making healthcare affordable, accessible, and available across class, gender, and location.

“We believe that Nigeria is endowed with sufficient resources to adequately fund the health sector, which must be affordable, accessible, and available from the rhetoric of the policy texts.

“While we are not averse to the participation of the private sector in the provision of health service, we are mindful of the fact private sector is most likely to be motivated by profit and will therefore price health services out of the reach of the common citizens.

“We demand that government’s presence in the health sector should be a social responsibility towards its citizens to aim at reducing poverty and inequality.

“Thus, we recommend a national development reform of the public financial management system aimed at strengthening budget design, allocation, and spending,” it said.