The Rivers State Government has said that it will not implement any unrealistic policy such as the Universal Free Medical Service (UFMS) embarked upon by the previous administration because of its lean finances, and the discriminatory nature of the programme.
The state Commissioner for Health, Dr Theophilus Odagme, said this during an interactive session with journalists as part the roundtable organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS) on the way  forward in implementing the project on “Healthcare In Danger In South-South” in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
Odagme added: “The Universal Free Medical Programme embarked upon by the past government was not a realistic goal; it had a lot of political undertones. I say this with all sense of humility and honesty.”
The commissioner emphasized that “Before the last government, we had a free medical service that the government between 1999 and 2007 embarked upon, which covered four groups: Pregnant women, children under five years of age due to high prevalence of childhood killer diseases in this age group, the elderly (60 years and above), the physically-challenged as well as families of legionnaires, among others.
“But when the past government came on board in 2007, rather than continue with this programme predicated on the vulnerable groups, it started a universal free medical service, which was challenged by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) as unrealistic since healthcare cannot be funded solely by government,” Odagme noted.
The commissioner recalled that “the last time free medical service was paid for by the Rivers State Government was in December, 2013”, adding that “from 2014 to May 29, 2015, no free medical service provided by either government personnel or private clinics was paid for. So, it has died natural death because it is not practicable”.
He stressed that “the Governor Nyesom Wike-led government can only take care of some groups, and not a universal free medical service, where everyone that is ill would depend on government, and after few months, it would crash due to limited resources from the state”.
The health commissioner pointed out that: “We are at a very unique time in our state’s history. During the last administration, we had such a unique economic situation in the state because there was so much money for government to implement various projects and initiate phantom policies. But because of the few resources in the state, and the nation at large, we cannot do universal free medical service.
“Although, there would be some kind of free medical programme for some vulnerable groups, this does not imply that this government has neglected free medical service. This government cannot operate at that level of universal free medical care, which is an unrealistic policy,” he emphasised.
Odagme said that the government was “at the moment doing what we call damage control, as a lot of damage was done to the system by the free medical care policy of the last administration” adding that both secondary and tertiary healthcare services were abandoned by the last administration.
“The only thing that was attended to was the primary healthcare, which was not enough. A number of the primary healthcare centres built were not equipped, and even when they were equipped, they were not well-structured to function optimally,” he added.
He noted that the interactive health forum organized by ICRC to chart the way forward on “healthcare in danger”, especially in Rivers State, was apt and timely, given the destructive impact of the last administration’s health policy, and restated the Rivers State Government’s commitment to work with the international humanitarian organization to find lasting solution to the challenges facing efficient and effective healthcare delivery in the state.

Susan Serekara-Nwikhana