Stakeholders in the Nigerian health sector are meeting to review the country’s health system and fine tune ways towards attaining a universal health coverage.
The review is taking place at the Fourth Annual Legislative Summit on Health, with the theme “Universal Health Coverage and Health Security: Two sides of a coin for an effective health system“.
The convener of the meeting and the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe, said that the purpose of the summit was to assess the state of the Nigeria’s health system in the light of emerging pandemic like the COVID-19.
He said that the summit would also seek ways to strengthen the health system in Nigeria.
The committee chairman also noted that Universal Health Coverage and Health Security were interrelated.
“We have to ensure that all health needs of people are met with sufficient quality without leading to financial hardship,” Oloriegbe said.
He reminded participants that the overall objective of setting up the Legislative Network was to effectively leverage statutory functions of the Legislature in Nigeria for improved health financing, toward effective and efficient utilization of the resources for Universal Health Coverage.
Developing the health system
On his part, the World Health Organization (WHO), representative in Nigeria, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo, urged the Nigerian government to develop its health system.
He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the decays in health infrastructures across the world that needed to be addressed.
He added that the pandemic provided an opportunity for countries to take charge and build functioning health infrastructural systems.
Public finance
Also speaking on the summit, the Senior Health Specialist at the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group, Dr. Olumide Okunola, said that “no country can achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) without public finance”.
He advised that Nigeria should put structures that would combat future pandemics as COVID-19 will not be the last one.
The Fourth Annual Legislative Summit which is continuing is held with support from partners to discuss, analyse health situations in the country, make decisions and take a stand on the way forward to solve challenges in the health sector.
