Chioma Obinna & Sumbo Braimah
19 August 2008
The need for a paradigm shift and devices to ensure a sustainable financing mechanism to scale up health interventions and healthcare, improve health outcomes as well as ensure financial protections against impoverishment that may result from households out-of - pocket expenditures were at the front burner of the 3rd West Africa International health Exhibition & Conference last week in Lagos.
Health professionals who gathered at the event observed that health at the centre of global development agenda poses a great deal of challenges. They also opined that for countries like Nigeria to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target by 2015 there is need to ensure sustainable financing mechanisms in the health sector.
Opening the event, Supervising Minister of Health, Dr. Lawal Hassan, opined that even with more money in the health sector, the country would still be faced with the challenge of spending wisely.
He said the need for a well-targeted health spending that will ensure both technical efficiency and allocative efficiency with a view to achieving equity and fairness, noting that the main goal of the nation's health system is to improve health status/outcomes, thereby achieving the health MDGs, while ensuring fairness and sustainable financing mechanisms that protect all and that people are treated with dignity and respect.
Lawal further disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Health had commenced the process of putting together Health Sector Reform Two programme with health investment plans that will outline the costing, investment dimensions of the health sector reforms programme agenda.
Also speaking, Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, who noted that health exhibition represents an unequalled opportunity for participants to explore the frontiers of medical innovation with the potential to significantly improve the quality of the healthcare delivery system in the region through investments in infrastructure, processes and systems.
On this year's theme, "Financing Sustainable Healthcare in West Africa", he said it forces government at all levels to think critically as a region about the financing of the health sector as a key determinant of the performance of the health systems both now and in the future.
"Indeed, financing is a fundamental function of our health systems as funds are required to create the human, material and infrastructural inputs that produce the healthcare commodity of appropriate quality and quantity for our populations."
He said evidence shows that health spending is well below levels needed to reach the MDGs, domestic resource mobilization capacity is limited, proportion to total public budgets devoted to health is low, there is a very large informal sector population of total public budgets devoted to health is low, there is a very large informal sector population which is widely dispersed in rural areas and household spending for healthcare tends to be out-of-pocket rather than prepaid."
On his own part, Chief Executive, Global Resources & Project Ltd., Dr. Wale Alabi, noted that the outcome of the conference and exhibition would further enhance the relationship between government and the private investors thereby giving more credence to the PPP policy for national development.
Highpoint of the event featured series of free medical checks and treatments ranging from checks for blood pressure, blood sugar, weight, height, HIV amongst others.
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