…Urges Huge Investment On Health Services

The Executive Director,
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, on Sunday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to make huge investment in providing quality health services,  nutrition and education to  enhance national development.
Osotimehin made the appeal in an interview with newsmen in Abuja on the sidelines of Nigeria’s Democracy Day.
He said that education was the first requirement to ensure the development of any nation and the eradication of poverty saying.
“An educated person is also creative and innovative, when you don’t have education and information you are not likely to move ahead.
“Also a healthy population and good nutrition will make a difference because the people have to eat well in order to be creative,” he said.
Osotimehin who advised that investments in the primary healthcare sector should be sustained by the government through the communities, said such would strengthen the primary health system.
According to him, “some of the challenges that affect the communities are water and sanitation, malaria as well as communicable diseases.  “If all the structures are put in place, 70 per cent of the health challenges in the communities would be controlled.”
He stated that, the role played by the teaching hospitals should be minimal, noting that the vast majority of Nigerians at the community level have never seen a health worker or had access to healthcare facilities.
He stressed that much money should be spent appropriately to build the health system in order to ensure a proper healthcare delivery.
“We need to get proper health workers to work within communities; it is the most important intervention not qualified doctors with years of experience.
“Health workers who have just finished secondary schools, who can be trained to offer basic services at the community level.
“Again there should be a supply chain system that delivers all that the health workers need to do their work,” Osotimehin emphasised.
He noted with these, a good number of inhabitants that live within the communities would have access to healthcare delivery effectively, adding that the money spent on healthcare by most communities in Nigeria was about 70 per cent which impoverishes most of the families.