Budget: Health sector has failed to deliver – Lawmaker

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Lanre Tejuosho, has disclosed the health sector has failed to deliver because of how its budget is managed.
He further added that many projects in the health budget has not achieved the ultimate goal of helping the intended beneficiaries.
Tejuosho revealed this while explaining various shortfalls bedeviling the funding of the health industry, at the recent commemoration of MamaYe day 2018, with the theme: Improving Nigeria’s Health Budget Performance’, in Abuja.
He said: “It is not unusual to find in the budget proposal line items such as the procurement of ambulances, computers and accessories. This tradition of input based financing does not serve the country well. It overly focus on products than people.
“Because of limited government and pooled health financing, health spending is dominated by out of pocket expenditure.
“In 1999 National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was established to compliment government spending and provide greater health financing for households, however as at 2016 only 7.9million people which is less than 4 percent of the population were covered, predominantly federal government civil servants.
“Even though Nigeria delegate delivery of health services to states and local governments, most health spending is at the central level.
“Primary Health Centres (PHCs) receives little or no operating budgets. They are meant to be funded by the local governments. If PHCs receives any cash at all, its from predominant sources and user fees which puts people into poverty.
“Additionally late passage of the budget which was delayed in 2016, 2017 and 2018 and lack of advance info on cash availability for capital expenditure under cuts budget execution.
“In my view the above shows that we do not prioritize health in financing decisions. The little we spend is on what does not impact the majority of the people. the places where we should spend on are totally neglected. The outcome is that there is a state of emergency in health in Nigeria.”
The lawmaker further stated that the addition of the one per cent Consolidated Revenue Fund as basic health care provision fund, will affect the current 2018 budget positively.
He said: “The 2018 health budget is about 4 percent of the annual which is about N51b but with the addition of this one percent of the consolidate revenue which is about N55b, we are now doubling the capital of the budget.”
According to him, the basic healthcare fund will be pumped into the NHIS to help reduce out of pocket spending, and help in revitalizing the over 30,000 PHCs across the country.
He also revealed that no fewer than 5,000 Nigerians will enjoy basic primary healthcare services from the one per cent of national consolidated revenue as Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) under the National Health Act (NHA) 2014.
Speaking, the Country Director MamaYe, Tunde Segun, stressed the impact of adequate resources in the health sector, and called for early passage and implementation of budgetary allocations in the country.
He said: “The MamaYe 2018 Day was dedicated on the aspect of health budget and timely releases of funds, to improve budget performance and the implication of timely releases of funds on health budget performance.
“Health is not in isolation when the country released budget in the middle of the year, from January to June people’s health challenges and needs that must be met.
“What we are saying is if the budget was passed on timely basis and the funds appropriated were released then their health system can improve.”
#FundNaijaHealth, a campaign geared towards funding the health sector was launched at the end of the event.

Leave a Reply