By Abbas Aminu Bamalli
Former Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Prof. Eyitayo Lambo has disclosed that 10 years after the establishment of Universal Health Coverage in Nigeria, the country is below 10%, which indicates that the country is still far behind the 2015 MDG’s target.
He disclosed this during the weekend in Abuja at a pre-technical workshop organised as part of the Presidential Summit to hold today, Monday, 10th March 2014, on Universal Health Coverage (UHC), in Nigeria.
Prof. Lambo said the UHC is a good initiative of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005 to carter for the health of Nigerians and the hope to achieve the MDG’s target by 2015.
Lambo expressed hope that the summit will bring out necessary steps to take in ensuring better health coverage in the country.
Speaking at the occasions, the minister of health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu said the UHC is one of the three top pillars of President Goodluck Jonathan in health sector, adding that health as the President’s top priority, “We will continue to find ways of improving the sector to benefit all Nigerians”.
He therefore described the technical session as one of the ways of achieving the agenda through the deliberations during the session.
In a paper presentation, Inke Matheuer from the World Health Organisation (WHO), said globally around the world, 150 million suffer severe financial hardship each year, and 100 million are pushed into poverty because they must pay out-of-pocket at the time they receive them.
She said, the most cause of that are, insufficient health workers, medicines and health technologies, ineffective service delivery, poor information systems and weak government leadership.
According to her, World Health Assembly resolution 2005 urged countries to develop their health financing system to ensure all people have access to needed services without the risk of financial hardship linked to paying for care.
