By Asma’u Ahmad
The Association of Nigeria Health Journalists (ANHEJ) have appealed to the Federal Government to allocate one per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the federation to the health sector as prescribed in the National Health Act.
The group also called for the prompt release of approved funds and judicious use of all monies made available to the health sector. ANHEJ made the calls in Abuja at its maiden Health Communications Conference which had the theme: “Persistent Poor Implementation of the Health Sector Budget: The Role of the Media.”
President of the association, Mr Marcus Fatunmole, said it had become imperative for government to fully implement the National Health Act, given the worrisome state of health services in the nation. Mr Fatunmole said that a large percentage of the less-privileged citizens of the country were dying due to poor access to health
services.
Prof. Isaac Adewole
He said that Nigeria’s health infrastructures and services would drastically improve if government fully implements the health Act. “Our maternal mortality rate is the highest in the world, we parade a quarter of global malaria burden and we are among the only three polio-endemic countries in the world. Nigeria at present has one of the highest number of acutely malnourished children in the world; a situation that has been worsened by activities of Boko Haram insurgents.
“Nigeria loses about 2,300 children who are below five years of age and 145 women of child bearing age every day. Our country is faced with increasing growing burden of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes and hypertension and mental-related ailment,” he said.
The ANHEJ president appealed to the government to commit enough resources to the sector to allow the masses access health care at affordable cost. He said that Nigeria could not significantly attain the Sustainable Development Goals if the Act, especially the portion demanding “at least one per cent” of the consolidated revenue allocation to the
health sector, is not implemented.
On his part, Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, called on the media to continue to advocate for accountability, increased funding and good governance in the sector. He expressed delight with the initiative and said the ministry would be more open to the media regarding information dissemination among others.
Prof. Adewole appealed to the media to put health issues in the front burner to attain the needed improvement in the sector for the benefit of all citizens, adding that investment in health yields more dividends than any sector of the economy.
The minister said “media represents a segment that is considered one of the most important partners in the health sector. The role of communications in health goes beyond the traditional reporting and coverage of activities that most people would naturally expect.
The minister also said the problem in the sector was not poor implementation of budget, but poor release of funds approved for the sector. Adewole said: “Nigeria is still far below the Abuja Declaration, a commitment by the African Union Heads of Governments to ensure that at least 15 per cent of National Budgets are allocated to the health sector. “In 2017, the Health Budget is only around 4 per cent of the National Budget, though this represents a slight improvement from around 3.73 per cent in the 2016 budget, the numbers are worrisome.
“This would mean that only about N1, 500 only is being spent on the health of every Nigerian per year. This is despite the huge and the unsavory indicators that Nigeria grapples with, including Maternal Mortality, Malaria, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis among others.”
Professor Adewole noted that Nigeria falls far behind other countries on the continent including Rwanda, Botswana and Malawi that allocated 18 per cent, 17.8 per cent and 17.1 per cent respectively to Health.
