From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Federal Government said on Thursday, that it has released N37bn to state governments for onward disbursement to selected Primary Health Care (PHC) centres in the states.
Breakdown of the figure indicated that N25bn, represented two quarters of 2023, while N12bn which represented the third quarter was released to the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Nigeria Centre fof Disease Control (NCDC) and the National Emergency Medical Service and Ambulance System (NEMSAS) gateways,
Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, who disclosed the development at the review meeting of the Ministerial Oversight Committee (MOC) on Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) in Abuja, stressed the fact that the disbursements were done using the 2020 guideline
He said a review of the guidelines for the implementation of the BHCPF is ongoing, and subsequent releases would be done using the new implementation guidelines which is expected to be ready by the third quarter of 2024.
The Minister told journalists that several flaws were identified in the existing BHCPF document/implementation guidelines hence the decision to engage all stakeholders to review the document for effective service delivery.
He said: “There was urgent need for comprehensive reforms of the BHCPF document including the review of the implementation guideline particularly for the NHIA and NPHCDA gateways in order to achieve the Nigeria’s Health Sector Renewal Initiative and Sector-Wide Approach as approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“A thorough assessment and audit of the BHCPF has revealed major flaws in programmatic, operational and fiduciary aspects of BHCPF implementation, thus warranting major reforms and redesign.
“All the 36 states and the FCT have demonstrated commitment to rectify these flaws by signing up a remediation plan with the Federal Ministry of Health, and also committing to implement corrective measures immediately after the new document is ready, expectedly in third quarter of 2024. All entities are currently working to implement recommendations,” he explained.
He said the redesign of the BHCPF, when fully implemented will ensure better alignment of resources towards improving Nigeria’s health outcomes of saving lives and producing health. “These outcomes include, but are not limited to improved antenatal coverage, increased skilled-birth attendance, reduced stunting & wasting, reduced adolescent birth rate, reduced number of zero-dose children, increase penta3 coverage, increased percentage of children 0-12 months fully immunized and increase health insurance coverage, ” he said.
The Minister recalled that a sub-committee was set up during the 5th Ministerial Oversight Committee (MOC) meeting in the last quarter of 2023, whose primary task was to lead the reforms, confirming that the review of the implementation guidelines is currently ongoing.
“The proposed reforms for NHIA and NPHCDA was approved during the 6th MOC meeting in March; and proposed reforms for Nigeria NCDC and National Emergency Medical Service and Ambulance System (NEMSAS) was extensively discussed at the recent meeting,” he added.
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