Leke Baiyewu, Abuja
The Federal Government has announced plans to mobilise doctors that would help handle medical emergency cases in 774 general hospitals across the country.
According to the government, the plan is to have a doctor available at all times for a medical emergency in at least one general hospital in every local government area.
This, the government said, is part of efforts towards reducing the maternal mortality rate in the country.
There are 774 LGAs in the country.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said state governments have been asked to nominate General Hospitals for the new healthcare plan, noting that the government was ready to implement the National Health Act 2014.
Ehanire disclosed this in Abuja on Friday at a three-day retreat organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Healthcare Services on amendments to the National Health Act, 2014.
The Act provides for the regulation, development and management of Nigeria’s health system.
Ehanire said, “We have told the state governors that if they renovate their secondary health care centres: one General Hospital per local government (area), we shall bring doctors from our tertiary institutions to come and be consultants there. And you don’t have to pay their salaries because they are already on salaries.
“We have done a pilot scheme in Sokoto by bringing doctors to the general hospitals to provide services.
“We have enough consultants in all our Federal Medical Centres and Teaching Hospitals to be able to serve the General Hospitals and bring life back into that middle-level cadre of treatment, and reduce the pressure in the tertiary institutions without putting the financial burden on the states.
“I am told that the states are worried about the salaries of the doctors.”
The minister also noted that the concept behind the ‘Save 1 Million Lives’ campaign by the government was in response to the nearly 1 million needless death in the country “that could be avoided if certain things were done and we created some pillars to achieve that.”
He said, “That investment was $500m taken as a loan by the Federal Government and given to the states as a grant. While technically that was successful, the actual impact of reducing one million deaths became questionable.
“Did we really reduce (the mortality rate)? We needed to have addressed the gaps and one of the biggest gaps is the lack of access to health care.
“If a woman is in the village and goes into labour at 1 am, she is on her own if she has a complication.
“The same thing applies to children. Add the accidents on our roads. Some patients are taken to the hospital but are asked to make payment before being attended to, or nobody will attend to you because you cannot have access to an ambulance.
“Something is missing and that is an emergency medical ambulance, which many developed countries have.”
According to the minister, the National Health Act is the best instrument that the country has to improve the health sector.
Ehanire said, “The National Health Acts says that states must put in 25 per cent of the funds coming into the states but the 2018 manual exempted them from paying that amount.
“And the National Assembly told us (ministry) that we have no power to exempt anybody or do outside what the law says.
“We eventually agreed with the (Nigerian) Governors’ Forum that their health budget would be considered as that 25 per cent. We all agreed on it and that is how this new manual came about.”
The minister noted further that the ministry was now working on a scheme that would revitalise the secondary health care system.
According to Ehanire, the scheme will be expanded to include surgery.
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