Ibrahim Oloriegbe, chairman of the senate committee on health, has called on the state and local governments to work on adequately financing the health sector.
Oloriegbe said this on Thirsday at 2023 Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Forum organised by the International Society for Media in Public Health (ISMPH) in Abuja.
According to him, the state and local governments are not committing enough resources to healthcare in their jurisdictions.
He noted that achieving universal health coverage (UHC) in the country is difficult because the state and local governments have abandoned their responsibilities for the federal government.
“For us to be able to achieve UHC, we need health insurance. The essence is that everybody that requires health should get it without suffering catastrophe whatever, particularly financial,” he said.
The chairman said the country needs to rethink the way it funds public health at all levels to ensure that there is UHC for every citizen.
“We need to rethink about public financing, public funding of our healthcare, looking at our physical structure. It is a federation.
“We have federal, state and local governments. If you look at what is happening now, the sub-national levels are not committing as much as necessary to health and the national health act stated the responsibility of each level of government with the federal government having the responsibility for tertiary care.
“About 70 percent of the health budget for the federal government goes to teaching hospitals and Federal Medical Centres, but of course, most of that is for salary purposes.
“Instead of them to allocate their own resources, the moment they see resources coming from the NPHCDA, they don’t allocate their own,” Oloriegbe added.
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