The Senate at an executive session on Tuesday, 21 April 2019, held a briefing session with the Honorable Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole over “The Current State of Facilities and Health Care Services in Nigerian Teaching Hospitals”. This was sequel to an earlier Resolution by the Senate demanding the Minister’s address on the deteriorating state of the Nigerian health sector.
At the briefing session initiated by Sen. Ahmad Lawan (Yobe: APC) who moved the motion for the Minister’s admittance to the chambers, Prof. Adewole highlighted the achievements of his Ministry in the last three years, stating that the National Health Policy and the second phase of the National Strategic Health Development Plan (NSHDP II) had been successful in improving health outcomes as indicated in the reduced prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS and Malaria. According to him while the prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS had dropped from 3% in 2015 to 1.4% in 2019, the occurrence rate of Malaria had equally reduced from 42% in 2016 to 27% in 2018. He also reported a higher percentage of children receiving immunization from 48% in 2015 to 57% in 2018.
The Minister however admitted a huge deficit in the funding of the health sector as well as contributing institutional lapses when he attributed the deteriorating conditions of health facilities across the country to the failure of Primary Health Care Services. He noted that there were scarce resources to fund the Primary Health Care systems. His other observations of deficiencies within the health sector included the loss of skilled manpower through brain drain; poor work environment and lack of basic equipment to work with which in turn created difficulties in diagnosing and treating of diseases at the primary health care level.
In addition, Prof. Adewole made recommendations on how to better achieve health outcomes such as the need for increased financing, continuity and implementation of high impact programs to achieve sustainable progress. He nonetheless expressed confidence that the legislative frameworks, policies, and strategic implementation of programs that the Ministry put in place would eventually achieve Universal Health Coverage.
Lastly, he reassured lawmakers of the Ministry’s commitment to continue engagement with the State and Local Governments and to increase performance in the management of health care programs and policies.
