Buhari urged to attend UN meeting over poor health indices

The Nigeria Universal Health Coverage Advocacy Group (NUHCAG) has said that Nigeria’s health indices still remain ‘unbelievably’ poor and urged President Muhammadu Buhari to attend the United Nations High Level Meeting (HLM) on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) on September 23 and adopt its resolutions.

The National Coordinator, Afrihealth Optonet Association/NUHCAG, Dr. Uzodinma Adirieje, made the call at a press briefing in Abuja.

He said Nigeria’s health indices were frightening over the years adding that by attending the UN meeting, President Buhari would take necessary steps to improve the delivery of health services.

Commenting on the indices, he said, antenatal care coverage remained below 65 percent and Skilled Birth Attendance has remained below 42 percent.

He said “Our country’s service delivery indices have remained characterized by very poor quality care with 29 percent of health care workers either idle or generally absent from work, 67 percent of our Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities surveyed in 2013 had stock out of essential medicines, while only 25 percent of the PHC facilities were minimally equipped, leading to poor sanitation and waste management and low/poor patronage with each PHC seeing 2.5 patient per day.”

He said since the National Health Insurance Scheme was set up, less than 5 percent of the population has been covered by any form of health insurance while in terms of health equity; the richest people still have more access to key PHC services than the poorest people.