The Kogi State commissioner for health, Dr Zakari Usman has lauded the activities of the Kogi State Government to reform the health sector. He did this during the opening ceremony of the physicians’ week of NMA Kogi State chapter stating that the Kogi state present administration under the watch of Governor Yahaya Bello has done more in restructuring its health sector with the implementation of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF) and Bello Care in order to take care of the health of the most vulnerable citizens and those at the grass root.
He emphasized the importance of healthcare reforms in moving forward the healthcare service delivery in Nigeria and enumerated some basic problems bedevilling the sector like brain drain, recruitment of quacks, and corruption among others.
He also revealed the drivers of health sector reform as poor management of health resources, poorly maintained physical health infrastructures, erratic supply and availability of drugs, and high prevalence of fake adulterated and substandard drugs.
The National President of the NMA represented by the national deputy secretary general, Dr Simeon Oyiguh has called on doctors to demonstrate professionalism while carrying out their duties thereby distancing themselves from religious, tribal and political sentiment to advance the Nation.
Earlier in the week, the national president of NMA Kogi Dr Uche R. Ojima while addressing journalists presented the theme of the 2022 physicians week as “ Healthcare Delivery System and the 2023 Democratic Transition: A Time to Change the Narrative while the subtheme is “mitigating the impact of brain drain on the dwindling human resource for health in Nigeria and Health sectors reform in the face of emerging public health threats” seized the opportunity to call on the government to act fast and fix healthcare problems in Nigeria to avoid total collapse of the health sector.
