As part of efforts to improve the Primary Health Care centres in the state, the Niger State Commissioner for Health and Hospital Services, Dr. Mustapha Jubril, has disclosed that the Ministry has proposed a budget of N20 billion for health in 2017.
The Commissioner made this disclosure while speaking at a one day stakeholders meeting on: “Adequate Funding for the Health Sector in the 2017.”
It was organized by a non governmental organization, Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria, in Minna on Tuesday.
Jubril said the budget of the Ministry will move away from building hospitals while focusing more on the functionality of staff, facilities and programmes.
According to him, the Ministry is working towards ensuring that there are drugs, equipments and programmes that will affect the lives of the people positively and ensure the sustainability of propgrammes by donor partners.
He said: “We need to convince the government on why more money should be given to the health sector.
“In 2017, we are not looking at building hospitals.
“We may renovate one or two, but we will not focus on it.
“We will focus on getting drugs, equipments and programmes to affect the lives of the people.
“We will make non functional facilities functional and ensure staff welfare will be taken care of.”
The Commissioner, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Ibrahim Tiffin, advocated for increased budgetary allocation to the Ministry to meet with the health challenges in the state, lamenting that allocation to the sector had dropped from N5.49 billion in 2011 to N3.85 billion in 2015.
Tiffin stated most activities in the health sector “are intangible”, which most politicians often do not appreciate, adding that investment in the health of the people “is as important if not more important than constructing gigantic edifices”.
However, the Permanent Secretary advised healthcare managers in the state to make good and judicious use of the little amount being given to the sector to better the Health of the ordinary people.
He said: “Despite the low budgetary allocation to the Ministry, we should justify what we have been given by applying such money to the purpose intended.”
The Coordinator of the Civil Society Scaling -Up Nutrition in Nigeria, Beatrice Eluaka, appealed to the government to improve on its social accountability, with particular reference to the health sector.
Eluaka said such a posture would help the advocacy and consequently improve care delivery in the rural areas of the state.
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