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By Taiwo Oluwadare
“Many materials and drugs administered to patients are imported and are now expensive due to exchange rate while increase in population on the other hand don’t make the limited materials, health workers and drugs circulate to all needed areas”
Those were the words of a health programme officer, Miss Anu Rotimi, at a legislative advocacy retreat held recently for members of the Oyo State House of Assembly in Oyo town.
The Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health (PACFAH) in collaboration with the Health Reform Foundation of Nigeria (HERFON), organisers of the retreat, want annual budget for health raised to at least 15 per cent.
Miss Rotimi added at the retreat: “There are financial challenges before the health workers occasioned by under funding of the sector. The retreat is also to advocate with policy makers in ensuring that health sector is prioritized in the 2017 budget”
She also said that there was need to ensure that child health and family planning is prioritized in the budget and given considerable percentage from the allocated funds.
She regretted that the state government had not prioritized family planning in the health scheme, a reason it had not had a code under the budgeted items.
According to her, a study conducted by HERFON in three focal states namely, Kaduna, Nasarawa and Oyo State, revealed low prioritization of family planning program within the health sector saying, the current inflation rate occasioned by the present economic recession and increase in population has been described as major threat to adequate delivery of health services in Oyo State.
Deputy Speaker, Musah Abdulwasi said a bill has been pending in the house for two and a half weeks.
He said: “The focus of this bill is to make health care available to everyone in the state especially at the grassroots. We have passed bills on health insurance and other health related matters because health is wealth. While the primary health bill has gone through first and second reading, the bill is presently with the appropriation committee to pass it into law.
“After the discuss on the bill, the committee will have three or four working days to submit reports before the house and I am assuring you that in the next two weeks, the bill will be passed into law.”
Commissioner for Health, Dr. Azeez Adeduntan, said Governor Abiola Ajimobi approved the establishment of an agency on August 28, 2015, in line with the resolution 29th of the 54th National Council on Health (NCH) meeting in May, 2011. He added that the agency achieved significant milestones since its establishment.
“This has I must say has been achieved through the support of the State government, development partners, community based organizations, and the good people of Oyo State”, he said.
Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Ada Ezeogu, said the organization is looking forward with expectation for proper infrastructure, medicine funding and evidence based policies that a primary health care entails as she congratulated the state government on the initiative and urge it to come up with workable plans to make the scheme fruitful.
Representative of World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Kolude Olufunmilola, congratulated the state government on the laudable programme. She said it will fast track health care development where people in the state and community level can partner in the programme and reduce fragmentation among health agencies to harmonize their efforts to yield better results.