Niger State government has been advised to urgently create a sustainability plan for the funding of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) if it must achieve the universal healthcare coverage by 2030.
While making this call at an event to mark this year’s annual Open Government Partnership (OGP) supported by PACFaH @Scale of PAS and CCRHS- PAS in Minna, the team Leader, State Technical committee on Healthcare financing, Dr Stephen Adeoye said “to harness the gains of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, the state government must develop a sustainability plan for its source of funding”.
According to Adeoye at a symposium on “Service Delivery and Healthcare Financing in Niger State, “we must look for a way forward to make this act sustainable as all its sources of funding have their challenges. Our donors and partners are gradually leaving.
”As of 2019, 85 per cent of funds for the health sector came from donors and partners. This should be stimulation for aggressive action and food for thought for Governments at all levels.
“Partners will come and go and in the absence of a sustainable plan, our efforts will go down the drain”.
Adeoye stated that while the state’s health insurance scheme (Nicare) is already in action, stakeholders and partners of the OGP must pay attention to the management of funds disbursed to primary healthcare centres across the state.
He noted that misappropriation and mismanagement of finances allocated could reduce the country’s opportunities of accessing more finances.
The Team Leader also said that while the Niger State Contributory Health Insurance Scheme (Nicare) provides a platform for Nigerlites, especially the vulnerable to access basic healthcare services at a reduced cost, more support is required to capture the thousands of vulnerable people in the state.
Adeoye stated further that about 200,000 vulnerable individuals have been identified for capturing into the state health insurance scheme.
Their registration, he said, had been facilitated by officials in the state ministry of health, the state house of Assembly as well as through private individuals.
In his remarks, the Project Director, Centre for Communication and Reproductive Health (CCRHS) Dr. Yabagi Shehu while commending the State Government for promoting PHCs transformation call for the employment of more health care workers to ease the plight of people who need medical care.
He also urged stakeholders and well-to-do individuals to support the registration of the vulnerable group into the state contributory Healthcare scheme (Nicare).
