Dr. Faisal Shuaib, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), has said that no fewer than 3,000 women and children below the age of five die daily in Nigeria due to lack of access to healthcare.
Shuaib said this on Friday in Lafia, Nasarawa State, when the state government signed an agreement with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for a $ 500,000 grant to strengthen the primary health care (PHC) system in the state.
He appealed to the three tiers of government and all stakeholders to take necessary steps that would always make it possible for the poor and the vulnerable in rural communities across the country to have access to health care services.
Shuaib lauded the Nasarawa State Government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the partnership, saying it would make a huge difference in health care delivery to the people in the state.
“As we begin to increase the number of functional health facilities and provide access to basic care for our people, we will gradually be stopping our women and children from dying needless deaths,” Shuaib said.
He emphasised that majority of the death was being recorded in the northern part of the country and urged government at all levels to prioritize primary health care delivery.
Also, Mr. Dana Hovig, the Director of Integrated Delivery at the foundation, while signing the agreement said that the two years’ grant was to mainstream performance-based financing into the state’s primary health care system.
Hovig said that the performance-based financing was a result based mechanism used to drive up performance of health systems.
This was done by addressing the root causes of underperformance, such as inadequate health services, barrier to accessing quality care, poor governance and financial management practices, he said.
He said that the Nasarawa State Government qualified for the grant, which was the first in the country, based on its performance in the primary health care delivery.
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