The Minister of State for Health, Dr Tunji Alausa, has said the Federal Government is working to move the healthcare sector from a consuming part of the economy to being one of the drivers of the economy, as it is in many advanced countries of the world.
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Alausa made the assertion, on Thursday, while on a working visit to the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo State.
He said what the President Bola Tinubu-led administration is working to ensure that the country’s healthcare sector is at par with its counterparts in developed countries where the healthcare sector is a driver of the economy and not a consuming part.
The minister cited the example of the United States where the health sector contributes about 24 percent to the country’s GDP, which translates to about $3.3trillion annually.
He noted, “We have a government being led by President Tinubu who is extremely passionate about healthcare, and not just healthcare, but taking our country to where it’s supposed to be among the comity of nations, and we are more fortunate that the attention he has given to the health sector hasn’t been given by any administration in the past.”
Alausa disclosed that the administration has four pillars for achieving the feat of moving the country’s healthcare forward, which include: governance, improving population outcome, value chain and security.
Explaining the four pillars, he revealed that governance entails accountability and giving Nigerians the care and respect they deserve; secondly, improving population outcome by strengthening healthcare infrastructure, equipping hospitals, and providing needed manpower; thirdly, unlocking healthcare value chain by providing durable, good and sustainable services in the healthcare sector; and providing not just physical security through healthcare, but also social and national security.
Alausa harped on the need to improve training as a way of addressing the dearth of human resources in the sector, saying trainings have to be carried out, not for now but to meet future needs, as a lot of things have changed and the kinds of diseases prevalent now were not in existence forty years ago.
He stated, “You will be so surprised if we take the census of the number of cardiologists that we have in Ibadan today. They are not up to ten but as a training institution, we must train excellent cardiologists. We need to erect a proper training structure that will produce specialised people in these new medical conditions that we are having now. We need to now begin to make super specialists in our country to meet the need of our time.”
In the area of human resources, the minister highlighted the need for more people to be engaged in the health sector as there are a lot of young people in the country that must be given the opportunity to work, saying one of the ways of achieving that is to increase the acceptance percentage of tutor schools.
He noted, “The acceptance percentage of UCH School of Nursing is very low compared to schools like Harvard, which is among the best in the world. So we have to increase production. We also need more structures and equipment, and we will be working with other agencies of government to come up with how we can mobilise funds for that.”
While commending the Chief Medical Director of the UCH, Prof Jesse Otegbayo, and the members of the Management Board for the job they are doing, the minister said the issue of power and water, among other infrastructural needs and amenities, will see him engage the required authorities for solution, urging the management not to rule out the possibility of home-grown alternative solutions, like CNG and solar, especially in addressing power challenge.
He said, “With regards to your request on power, we will speak to the minister of power on whatever solution we can come up with to solve the power problems. On the water problem, I saw the memo you sent and I have been talking to the Minister of Water Resources on the dredging you made mention of and I’m sure we will be able to do something about that,” the minister asserted.
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