Coordinating minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Ali Pate has unveiled a four-point agenda for improved healthcare delivery in the country.
The minister, who spoke at a press briefing on Saturday in Abuja,
said the ministry would work with state governments to improve the regulatory function at the supply chain level
He said the second area of focus was improvement of population health outcomes so that diseases such as diphtheria, measles, vaccine preventable diseases, maternal and child health would be focused on.
Pate, however, said that changing the narrative depended on all Nigerians and was not dependent on the government or healthcare professionals alone.
“Mothers are dying. Pregnancy is not a disease but if any woman dies from disease, bleeding, from poor quality care sometimes, from lack of affordable health services.
“So how do we change that? It‘s all of us collectively, families, communities, health workers, political leaders who will do that. “So we have decided that in fact, we will make maternal deaths reportable, make it visible.”
He added that Nigeria needs to prioritise spending for health and the quality of that spending.
“So parliamentarians, state governors, others that support Nigeria, we need to do more, because if we don‘t spend much you cannot be spending 70 dollars per person on health.
The third area of focus according to him was medical industrialisation which is the value chain of the sector, saying it is an area that has not been attended to.
Pate said that the fourth focus area was health security, explaining that the aim was to ensure that when disease outbreaks or epidemics occur, Nigeria would be prepared and able to effectively respond to the outbreaks, pandemics and humanitarian crises.
