By Wilfred Eya
Former Senate president, Bukola Saraki, has called for stronger political will among politicians and policy makers to achieve universal basic healthcare in Nigeria.
Speaking, yesterday, at the Universal Health Coverage Summit organised by Chatham House, at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja, Saraki said to put healthcare and health security coverage on the front burner, Nigerian leaders at the national and subnational levels needed to take healthcare delivery for all its citizens more seriously.
“As a medical doctor, this is a topic that is close to my heart. It is a topic that I believe we all need to get on board to ensure more Nigerians have access to healthcare coverage.
“To achieve development, the Nigerian population must be healthy. If we can get healthcare coverage right as a nation, we will be doing a lot for our citizens. However, the people that truly matter, the political leaders and decision-makers at the national and sub-national levels should be the ones at summits like this one to discuss what their manifestos and plans in the healthcare sector are for the Nigerian people,” the former Kwara State governor said.
Saraki, who, as Senate president spearheaded the passage of the inclusion of one percent for basic primary healthcare from the Consolidated Revenue Fund in the 2018 budget, said Nigeria had the technical knowledge, tools, and resources to achieve universal healthcare coverage.
“We can pass three more laws or five more laws. However, unless the leadership of the nation and our states believe in holistic healthcare coverage for all, like all the doctors and healthcare public policy experts in this room, we will not be able to achieve universal healthcare coverage.
“In 2007, when I was Kwara State governor, I realised what everybody wanted to see was fancy hospitals and ‘ribbon-cutting ceremonies’. However, given the infancy and maternal mortality rates, what my state needed at the time was basic primary healthcare at the grassroots level.
“The real work is in training healthcare workers and taking them to the rural areas. Which is what we did at the time. The real work is in sustainable long-term solutions for this critical sector,” Saraki said.