Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has asserted that healthcare is a human right that the people deserve.
The governor stated this in Abuja when he received an award from the International Society of Media in Public Health (ISMPH) at a high-level health media dialogue and advocacy solutions to improve Primary Healthcare (PHC) delivery and health outcomes in Nigeria project.
The governor, along with his Kano and Lagos State counterparts, was honoured for their efforts in providing healthcare to the people, especially rural dwellers.
Sani said he had been working hard in the last two years to ensure the state gets good health care delivery by ensuring that the PHC system is working, while the personnel are also well catered for.
He said the health of the citizens is not just a service to be delivered, but also a human right for all citizens.
“Good healthcare is not just a service we should deliver, it is a fundamental human right,” Sani said, adding that he upgraded PHCs in all the 23 local governments and that of over 1,000 PHCs in the state, they have equipped and transformed over 25,000 PHCS into vibrant centres of treatment and data collection.
“No Nigerian family should be pushed into poverty by seeking health care,” Sani said, adding that the PHCS in the 23 LGAs serve as health delivery and data information centres.
“In Kaduna, every emergency case is treated free of charge in the first 48 hours,” Sani said, adding that he recruited 1,800 health workers for rural postings and every year in the next five years, the state will recruit 1,800 workers.
The country director of the Gates Foundation in Nigeria, Uche Amaonwu, commended Kaduna, Kano and Lagos States for their work in the health sector.
Amaonwu said the conversation could not be more timely, adding that the health of mothers’ children and families, and by extension, Nigeria’s human capital, depends on what the stakeholders do next for PHC in Nigeria.
The minister of Health Ali Pate said that for a very long time, Nigeria has been looking down on itself regarding healthcare services, adding that no country in the world has total coverage for its health sector without improvement in its revenue drive.
“Nigerians must come together to build a consensus on prioritisation of the health sector,” he said.
He said Nigeria had not been collecting revenue for a very long time but wanted things to work, adding that President Tinubu had put the country on the right track.
The founder of ISMPH, Moji Makanjiola, said 82,000 women die of health-related issues during pregnancy in Nigeria within a short period.
She said Kaduna, Kano, and Lagos have done well in the health sector and urged them to continue to ensure that the health sector receives at least 15 percent of the health budget.
