NPHCDA, partners organise workshop to strengthen healthcare delivery

On May 4, 2023

The National Primary Health Care Development Agency with support from Busara Centre for Behavioral Economics has organize a 1-day Close-out and dissemination of the “Strengthening Demand for PHC Services in Nigeria Project.”

The objective of the meeting is to share results and outcomes from the “Strengthening Demand for PHC Services” project and derive lessons learned and best practices to be applied to future projects.

Speaking during the workshop, the Director General/Chief Executive Officer of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, (NPHCDA) Dr Faisal Shuiab said the project was initiated in 2020 in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation (BMGF) to build on the Agency’s existing PHC demand, generation strategies, strengthen the capacity of SPHCDBs (including LGAs/HFs), and trusted community influencers to effectively apply modern behavioral science approaches, advocacy, and communications to sustainable PHC demand generation in a Covid-impacted world.

Representing the DG/CEO of NPCDA, the Chief Medical Officer, (CMO) National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Usman Adamu noted that the demand for PHC services in the country has remained sub-optimal due to reasons ranging between social, cultural and geographical barriers, poor quality of care, and low level of trust in health system arising from misinformation and disinformation, etc.

‘’The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 made the situation worse by bringing about social restrictions and heightening public distrust in the health systems. This impacted negatively on health seeking behaviours, and further weight down on demand for services especially at primary health care and community levels in the country’’. He said.

‘’As we strove through COVID to recover demand for services using our existing structures and strategies, we were also working closely with BMGF on how we could explore behavioural science approaches and human-centred designs for a more evidence-based interventions that would lead to long term desired changes in health seeking behaviours’’. He added.

Dr. Adamu said that the implementation of this first stage of the project, which included funding for two years to cover start-up support in 2 states, Niger and Gombe commenced in 2021, ‘’this is a little over two years since then, and I would like to commend the BUSARA Centre for behavioural economics for its exemplary leadership of the implementing consortium. I also commend other members of the consortium CCSI, Solina, NTLC and, especially NPHCDA for the excellent job they have done on this project’’.

He explained that based on the mutually agreed milestones, he is confident that the team has made sufficient progress on stage 1 of the project, and should therefore consider taking immediate steps to develop the scale up plan.

’’It is my hope that, as envisioned in this project, its impact will provide more justifications for the institutionalizing of behavioral science in our PHC demand generation strategies from conceptualization to implementation in the future’’. He said.

In his welcome address, the Director of Community Health Services, Dr Chris Elemuwa said project was designed to strengthen the demand for primary healthcare services and it has achieved that goal in more ways than one.

’’Through the project, we have been able to raise awareness about the importance of accessing primary healthcare services and educate communities on the benefits of preventive healthcare. We have also been able to provide training and capacity-building programs for healthcare providers and traditional leaders to improve the quality of services they offer. This has resulted in a significant increase in the number of people accessing primary healthcare services, particularly in Niger and Gombe States’’. He added.

Dr Elemuwa explained that the success of this project would not have been possible without the support and collaboration of our partners, particularly the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. ‘’We are grateful for their support and commitment to improving primary healthcare in Nigeria’’.

“I would also like to express my appreciation to the staff of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), the Busara team, our consortium partners, traditional leaders, State teams and other stakeholders who have worked tirelessly to ensure the success of this project, your dedication and hard work have made a significant impact on the lives of many Nigerians’’. He added.

Dr Elemuwa reiterated NPHCDA commitment to providing accessible, affordable, and quality primary healthcare services to all Nigerians.

‘’We will continue to work with our partners and stakeholders to ensure that no one is left behind in accessing healthcare services’’. He said.

The Country Director, Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation, Nigeria, Dr Jeremie Zoungrana who was represented by Katya Silla said the Gates Foundation has one overarching goal, and that is to create a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy and productive life.

She noted that this goal drives all of its engagements around the world where they support and partner with governments, civil society, think tanks, researchers, and innovators.

‘‘Today’s event is a great example of the type of partnerships that we embarked on to deliver on our mission. During the height of the pandemic, I believe we all learned the importance of the primary health care system and the role that agencies like the NPHCDA play in ensuring widespread access to quality health care. However, we also learned about the behaviors and beliefs that influence some of the barriers and issues preventing people from accessing health care services and the COVID-19 vaccines during this time, such as cultural religious and social norms, misinformation, disinformation, and just widespread hesitancy’’. She said.

She said understanding all of these issues were critically helping the agency that’s the NPHCDA, and its partners to design tailored interventions to address vaccine hesitancy for instance, to ensure that essential services was still being delivered to communities.

‘’The reason we’re all here today is because as practitioners, we know that by understanding human behavior, including factors such as motivation, decision making, and social influence, we can design interventions that are more effective and promoting healthy behaviors and preventing disease. This is the application of behavioral science to our work, and it has already been done in Nigeria’’. She added.

The BMGF applauded Dr. Faisal Shuiab for the bold decision to set up a Behavioral Science Unit that will take the work forward at the NPHCDA and also at the sub national and the state level.