Lawmaker, Experts Push For Funding, Legislative Intervention To Fix Healthcare Deficits

The lawmaker representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the Senate, Senator Ireti Kingibe, has stressed the need for domestic health financing models, calling for strategies to generate capital to sustain health systems beyond donor and aid interventions.

This is just as experts called for the introduction of tech- and Artificial Intelligence, AI-enabled platforms and data-driven solutions that can be leveraged to improve healthcare systems and health financing models across Africa.

They spoke at the 2026 Gatefield Health Summit themed “Scaling What Works,” a high-level event aimed at bridging the gap between isolated breakthroughs and sound policy to transform Africa’s health systems held in Abuja.

The FCT lawmaker reiterated
the need to move existing innovative solutions past the prototype stage to wide-scale implementation.

“Let us commit to breaking down the silos between innovation and implementation. Let us direct our capital, our technical expertise and our legislative will towards rigorous, measurable scaling of what works.

“Let us move decisively so that every African citizen is guaranteed the dignity of a longer, healthier, and more productive life,” Senator Kingibe stated.

Also speaking, co-founder of MyItura, a digital healthcare provider, Shina Arogundade, stated that AI solutions can be deployed to analyse trend data to predict disease outbreaks and climate events, with a focus on validation and integration into national public health systems while maintaining ethical procedures.

Arogundade further addressed how artificial intelligence governance and intellectual property architectures can be intentionally structured to improve the means through which health solutions reach the most marginalised communities.

“Healthcare is mostly run by the public sector, so government engagement is necessary to scale AI in the health sector,” Arogundade emphasised.

A recent report by the Gates Foundation showed that while training new doctors to close the doctor-to-patient ratio gap in Sub-Saharan Africa would take years, patients’ lives cannot be put on hold, making AI and innovative solutions necessary to support medical practitioners and the healthcare systems they sustain.