Pate: FG’s Health Sector Reform Recording Progress

•‘Improvement in skilled birth attendance, antenatal care, data reporting’

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Pate, has said Nigeria was making significant improvements in healthcare access and in the delivery of quality healthcare services to Nigerians, especially at the Primary Health Care (PHC) level.

Pate who spoke at the Sector-Wide Approach State Strategic Engagement with North Central and South Western States Stakeholders ‘ on Tuesday in Abuja, said that following the reforms in the health sector, about 80 million contacts were made at the Primary Healthcare Centres.

He commended the collaborative efforts of the states ensuring improved healthcare delivery to the people at the grassroots level.

According to him, despite the prevailing challenges, some states have recorded significant improvements in skilled birth attendance, antenatal care attendance as well as in performance data reporting.

He said: “In some areas, the performance is marginal, but we’re also learning from each other. Overall, we’re seeing improvement in how states are reporting data about their performance.

“Just to put it in context, every quarter about 20 million contacts are made with Nigerians through the primary health care system that has now been revamped.

“That means about 80 million contacts. It doesn’t mean 80 million people, but it means at least 80 million contacts per year, which means that the primary health care system, imperfect as it may be, is beginning to pick up because of the reforms that this government started under the leadership of the president and with the support of all the states, the local government, civil society, and development partners, as well as Nigerians, because it is all of us, including community leaders, traditional leaders, that have to demand for the care.

“This is an exercise to assess our performance by ourselves, leading up to the joint annual review that we will do later this year, and we’re very pleased with the support that we’re seeing from all the states that are actively engaged in this effort, which is part of really the transformation that we are undertaking together with everyone.”

Pate who regretted that the health sector had suffered many years of under investments, noted that even though it would take some time before the country’s health sector is positioned the way Nigerians were looking forward to, the current administration has in the last two years, undertaken deliberate investments to drive needed reform in the sector.

“We expect that on an annual basis, that joint review will take place, the state of health report will be produced, so that Nigerians get a sense of where we are. We have a health sector that has had many years of under investments, but this administration over the last two years, deliberately, under the leadership of the president, has invested, and many state governments are matching what the federal government is trying to do.

“So, it’s a continuous process, and it will take us some time for Nigeria’s health sector to be the way we want it to be.

“But we have started that journey of transformation, and we all have to continue on that path. We have to join hands with the federal government and state, local governments also have to step up.

“The civil society organizations and the media also have to educate Nigerians that health is one thing that should bring everybody together, because it affects all of us.

“With the direction that we have in the federal government and the states keying in, we are already beginning to see early signs that things are slowly improving, but they have to be sustained and we are committed to making sure that Nigerians get the benefit of these improvements that we are making in the system.”

National Coordinator, Sector-Wide Coordination Office, Dr. Muntaqa Umar Sadiq, said the performance dialogue by states was focused on examining the core sets of indicators and allow states reflect on their performance and identify areas of improvement and collective action

His words: “We do this every quarter and focus on our important priorities, everything from skilled birth attendants, routine immunization, all the important interventions required to crash maternal neonatal and under-five mortality.

“This gives us a basis for performance management with states so that we’re focusing on the important notes, identifying the problems and removing those issues to achieve our collective goals.”

According to Sadiq, the different problems in each of the six geopolitical zones have been identified and their efforts supported to improve their ability to save the lives of women and children.

“For the first time, we’ve not only had dialogues looking at the same sets of indicators with every single state, but we’ve had a joint annual review and we’re building on that to have these performance dialogues that feed into their annual operating plans so that in the sector wide, when we say one plan, one budget, one report and one conversation, it speaks to an aggregation of every single state’s plans. And that’s why we’re quite excited.

“So, states have now identified their issues, the bottlenecks stopping them from moving the needle. Some of the colours of the scorecards that you see were red. So, we’ve discussed why, what are the pragmatic factors that will get them from red to green and as a ministry, we are supporting states in tackling those issues and improving their performance.

“Going forward, we hope that this will translate into improvement in population health outcomes where facilities are more functional, primary health care facilities are connected to CMAL facilities where emergency services are working, where the treatment for malaria or the availability of maternal and child health interventions are available at the frontline.”

The Special Adviser on Health to Ogun State Governor, Prof. Odimayo Michael, said the current health initiatives were upgrading the entire health sector in Nigeria, adding – “We are actually having a system in the country at this time that is responsive to the health of the people.”