Senators Thursday took turns to laments the poor state of primary health centres in parts of the country.
Worried by the prevailing condition in primary health centres, the lawmakers unanimously resolved to prevail on the Federal Government to take measures to increase budgetary allocation for the management of primary health care.
They also urged the Ministry of Health to create awareness on the benefits of Health and Life insurance as well as directed the Ministry of Employment to put in place policies to ensure that every employer of labour has Health Insurance package for employees.
The resolutions followed a motion by Senator Oluremi Tinubu and 108 others on the “Need for increased funding to Primary Health Care Centres.”
The Lagos Central senator in her lead debate noted that she is aware that Primary Health Care is a grassroots, community based initiative that provides Health Care services to Communities.
The lawmaker added that she is also aware that it is universally accepted that access to health care for all is only possible through prevalence and accessibility of Primary Health Care.
He recalled that Primary Health Care in the country was adopted in 1988 by the National Health Policy to provide promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative services.
Senator Tinubu expressed concern that a lot of the problems in the country’s health sector could be traced to low performance of Primary Health Care facilities.
She quoted the World Health Organisation (WHO), which said that Primary Health Care will meet 80 -90 per cent of a person’s health needs over the course of their life.
She further expressed concern that World Bank Service Delivery Indicators Survey showed that though available, performance of the Primary Health Care is hampered by lack of financial resources, infrastructure deficit, insufficiency, lack of drugs, equipment and vaccines.
She noted that Primary Health Care had improved population health in low and middle income countries.
The lawmaker also expressed sadness that according to a journal published by Frontiers in Public Health, only about 20 per cent of the 30,000 Primary Health Care Centres in the country are working with most of them lacking capacity to provide essential health services.
She said that the Senate should be worried that failure of Primary Health Care and the belief that it is for low income earners has led to an influx of patients to secondary and tertiary health care facilities.
She is further worried that “our secondary and tertiary health care facilities are burdened with treating common ailments that could have been handled at a primary health care center.
She said that the Senate should be concerned that “the average Nigerian is one illness/tragedy away from poverty.”
The upper chamber, she said, should be “distressed to see an upsurge in pleas for crowd funding via social media, to enable access to healthcare facilities” and “further distressed that Nigeria was only recently, rated as one of the poorest in the world.”
She stressed the need for comprehensive government backed health insurance and insisted that “until accessible and affordable health cover is provided, emergency and non-emergency situations will remain a burden.”
She reminded her colleagues that health care accessibility is a fundamental right and must be treated as such.
Apart from increased budgetary provision, the Senate also resolved to direct the Ministry of Health to ensure that government backed Health Insurance Scheme is accessible as well as urge the Ministry of Health at federal and state levels to encourage medical technological innovation in primary health facilities.
Most Senators who contributed to the motion agreed that urgent step should be taken to revive moribund primary health centres in the country.
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, commended senators for the support of the motion.
He recalled that in the Eight Senate a bill for additional funding for primary health centers in the country was passed.
He noted that it was through the bill that additional N60 billion was attracted to fund primary health center in parts of the country.
Lawan said that they would continue to mount pressure to ensure that the country’s health sector improved.
