The Senate on Thursday passed a motion to increase budgetary allocation for the management of Primary Health Care(PHC) in the country.
The resolution of the Senate was hinged on a motion sponsored by Sen. Oluremi Tinubu(APC Lagos Central) on the need to increase funding of PHC for the benefits of Nigerians.
The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that PHC in Nigeria was adopted in 1998 by the National Health Policy to provide, promotive, curative and rehabilitative services.
NAN further reports that the motion was co-sponsored by 108 other senators.
Tinubu, said the motion became necessary because of the challenges associated with health management in the country.
She said the health problems were traced to the low performance of PHC facilities.
The senator added that available indicators from World Bank survey showed that the performance of PHC was being hampered by lack of financial resources,infrastructure deficit,lack of drugs,equipment and vaccines.
Tinubu quoted the Frontiers in Public Health Journal as having said that “Only about 20 per cent of the 30, 000 PHC centres in Nigeria are working with most of them lacking capacity to provide essential services.”
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She said the failure of PHC and the belief that it is for low -income earners had resulted to influx of patients to secondary and tertiary health care facilities.
NAN reports that the motion attracted contributions from Senators like Chimaroke Nnamani,(Enugu East)Sen.Alero Adamu(Kebbi Central) Dahiru Ashatu (Adamawa Central) among others.
They said that accessibility to healthcare was a fundamental right and must be accorded the required attention.
The senate, in addition to increase of the funding,urged the Ministry of Health to create awareness on benefits of health and life insurance.
It directed the Ministry of Environment to put in place policies to ensure that every employer of labour has health insurance package for employees.
It also urged Federal and State Ministries of Health to encourage medical technological innovations in primary health facilities in their respective domains.
(NAN)