The Health Sector Renewal Initiative: Walking the Talk

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The recent pledge by the Federal Government of Nigeria to make innovative contributions towards improving the health sector in the new year portends a new dawn for Nigerians, if the government will truly go beyond the rhetoric. In December 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, during the unveiling of the Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative and the signing of the Health Renewal Compact by the federal and state governments in Abuja, said his administration would be prioritising and improving Nigeria’s health sector through massive investments and allocation of increased funding to the sector in the 2024 budget.

The government has apparently begun on a positive and reassuring note, judging by a couple of pragmatic presidential decisions made at the first Federal Executive Council meeting of the year towards revitalising the sector. One of such is the executive order to slash the exorbitant prices of essential medicines, promote domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing, and replace retired or departed health personnel Another is the restoration of funding for 13 health regulators that were initially defunded. Such gestures portray the administration’s readiness to bring the health sector back to the front burner.

Also to be lauded is the audacious drive by the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Ali Pate, towards Nigeria’s attainment of Universal Health Coverage by redesigning the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF). The move, as announced, is aimed at drastically increasing the number of functional Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in the country from 8,000 to 17, 000 and to channel $3 billion of pooled and non-pooled financing towards primary healthcare between 2024 and 2026.

While many Nigerians have welcomed the president’s promise with cautious optimism, many stakeholders are rightly demanding that the FG must take more decisive steps to demonstrate its commitment towards improving the health sector. Many hinge their reservations on the fact that successive governments in the country had paid lip service to the sector, leaving the average Nigerian to grapple with the devastating consequences of a grossly underfunded and underdeveloped sector.

Quite worryingly, a critical analysis of the total budgetary allocation to health in the 2024 budget  shows little or no departure from the previous governments’ laxity towards healthcare matters, usually evidenced by non-adherence to the 15 per cent agreement of African Union member states in the Abuja Declaration of 2001. As the Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) rightly observed in its latest report, the current N1.38 trillion healthcare budget proposal, which is a meagre 5.03 per cent of the total N27.5 trillion proposed budget, will require an additional N2.75 trillion to meet the 15 per cent recommended allocation.

To this end, it must be reiterated that for the government’s health sector renewal initiative to succeed, the issue of financing must be taken more seriously. This, aside from adequate budgetary allocation, can be achieved by exploring innovative financing mechanisms. Top among this is public-private partnerships. Moreover, other recurrent challenges in the health sector, such as brain drain and perennial industrial actions must be squarely addressed.

The government must also consciously prioritise provision of accessible and affordable healthcare services to the most vulnerable and marginalised members of society. These include rural communities, women, and children. Added to this is the rapid improvement of medical facilities and infrastructure nationwide. This includes the rehabilitation and upgrading of healthcare centres and hospitals across the country. The government must ensure that these facilities are equipped with modern technologies and equipment to improve the quality of healthcare services.

With a rapidly exploding population of over 200 million people, an oil-rich Nigeria should not be the epicentre of diseases like malaria, which has become an albatross to the country. According to a 2022 report by the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa, Nigeria had 68 million cases and 194,000 thousand deaths from the disease in 2021. Globally speaking, Nigeria has the highest malaria burden, accounting for over 27 percent of the global burden. Systematic efforts must be made in the new year to reverse this deplorable situation.

The full implementation of the provisions of the National Health Act, 2014 (NHA) 2014 is another benchmark for affirming the commitment of the Tinubu-led government to prioritising the health sector. With the ambitious promise that has been made to Nigerians by the present government, the onus lies on it to convince Nigerians that all the unsavoury health sector performance indices of the past will remain in the past. This feat is achievable if the government can make the right investments and saddle the right people with the responsibility of turning around the sector for the good of all Nigerians.

It is our expectation that the government will leverage effective public-private partnership models for the implementation of its strategic programmes. Some funding can also be obtained from the government’s savings on the recent petrol subsidy removal. In fact, a major chunk of these saved billions should be channelled to critical sectors such as health. Nigeria and Nigerians will be all the better for it.