2017 BUDGET: FG COMMITS N12BN TO DECONGEST HOSPITALS
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, said the Federal Government made a commitment of N12 billion to decongest national hospitals and other tertiary teaching hospitals in the country. Adeowole said this on Monday in Abuja at the sideline of the Public Presentation of the 2017 Budget Proposals tagged “Budget of Recovery and Growth”. He said in the 2017 Budget, about N51bn was proposed for health infrastructure development, part of which would be dedicated to implementing the new National Health Policy. He said that the policy would focus on strengthening primary healthcare centres and encouraging states to strengthen secondary healthcare centres while the Federal Government focused on the tertiary teaching hospitals in the country.
He said, “In the last 12 months, we have seen the rehabilitation of close to 3,000 of primary healthcare centres. This was done from both internal funding and funding from development partners. “In 2017, we intend to continue to support primary care. In addition to this, we intend to take more people away from tertiary hospitals. “Many Nigerians go to tertiary hospitals for any kind of ailment, be it headache, fever, diarrhea they go to national hospitals. That is not where they ought to go. “They should go to the primary healthcare facility close to them. So we will de-congest the tertiary hospitals so that they can attend to serious cases such as cancer, heart disease among others.”
Adewole said that the ministry planned to leverage and partner with the private sector to get more funding for the sector, especially in the development of tertiary teaching hospitals.
