Date: 2016-06-24

Lagos State Commissioner for Health Dr Jide Idris, and his Ogun and Kwara state's counterparts, Dr Babatunde Ipaye and Mr Abolaji Alege, have canvassed proper financing, capacity building and health reform to move the sector forward.

According to Idris, stakeholders need to pressure the government to fund healthcare and ensure the sector is reformed. Idris spoke in Lagos during PharmAccess Strategy Day on Nigeria. The theme was Making health markets work for low-income people in Nigeria.

The major problem, Idris said, lies with those who run the country’s health system, stressing that many lacked the capacity to function effectively. "Many of them are not computer literate. This was disturbing as it did not allow for improvement in the use technology in the hospitals," he said.

He said the reality of poor funding of the sector came to the fore during the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in the country. "When Ebola struck, we saw issues of logistics coming up. But we the government what we need and the money came," he said.

Idris whose topic centred on health delivery and sustainability, said technology has a role to play in improving access to healthcare delivery system. Dr Ipaye identified poor funding of healthcare as the primary issue affecting the growth of the sector.

He advised the Federal Government to invest in the sector, adding: "Nobody can give what he does not have".

The Ogun State Health commissioner said the present three percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to healthcare was poor, stressing that more fund should be invested in the sector.

Ipaye said the country's per capita income has bearing on the state of health. The Country Director, PharmAccess Foundation Nigeria, Njide Ndili said her organisation was interested in increasing access to inclusive quality health care for low income communities in Nigeria.

According to her, lack of access to inclusive quality health care is one of the primary challenges facing Nigeria. This, she said, was in spite of the efforts being undertaken by stakeholders in the industry.

She said the programme was organised to facilitate discuss among key players to get response from stakeholders, long standing partners, new and potential partners. The programme, she said, would enable the company find a way forward to advance access to quality healthcare to low income communities.