Stakeholder wants govt to evolve strategy to pull funds PHCs

Health stakeholders at the 3rd national human resources for health conference has stressed the need for government at the levels to embark on strategies that will explore for more funding opportunities towards the revitalization of primary health care centres in Nigeria.

This was made known on Tuesday in Abuja, through Prof. Akin Osibogun of the Department of Community Health, College of Medicine University of Lagos.

According to him, the situation where the country relays mainly on foreign donor rather than focusing on other ways to finance their health care system will not auguer well for the development of the nation’s health care system.

“We must stop to rely on donor and partner because even they are very useful but still have things to do.
“We are not saying that all the money needed for the development of the health care should come from Governmnet alone but we are saying that there is need for them to also employ other strategies because the foreign donors too have a lot of goals to achieve and most times they focus on achieving some short term goals of a country rather than their long term goals. So it behoves on any country to look inward and pull resources that will help them achieve their set long term goals to help them promote and attain their set goals if they must move forward.

“As a matter of facts, the country need a mix of chain in addition to improving government funding, all those lifestyle that we engage as a nation that tends to make us spend more unnecessarily should be cut down and funds Committed and redirected to proper healthcare financing”.

Prof. Osibogun further stressed, “there should be dedicated tax for health drawn for road usage tax as a proportion of annual vehicle licence and apps develop special loans rate for the establishment of health institutions/hospitals with defined human resources development programmes”.

He also pointed out the need for a well designed packages plan that will provide reward for dedicated staffs to help promote rentantion of work force in various work places.