The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, has restated Federal Government’s commitment to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals goal three and other national health targets in the country.
SDG goal 3, which has 13 targets, focuses on ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being of people.
Ehanire said this at the opening of the 3rd Annual Conference of Association of Nigerian Health Journalists on Thursday in Abuja.
The minister said that the country was committed to meeting the targets by implementing policies and programmes that would ensure coverage
of women and children.
He said: “Government would implement policies and programmes on women and children who were most hit by deprivation and inability to access healthcare services.
“This is viable in budgetary provision for the Basic Health Care Provision Fund of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.
“BHCPF should be accessed directly by Primary Health Care facilities for direct impact on citizens at the grassroots.”
He, however, urged the association to continue to promote thorough, fact-based and progressive discourse in the heath sector.
Dr Gafar Alawode, the Country Director of US Agency for International Development Health Policy Plus Project,
said Nigeria needed to do more to improve its performance toward achieving Universal Health Coverage.
According to him, UHC means that all people and communities can use the preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services they need without experiencing financial hardship.
He said: “UHC cuts across all the health-related SDGs and it has a number of objectives which are: equity in access to health services relative to need and not the ability to pay.
“The quality of health services should be good enough to improve the health of those receiving services and financial risk protection for all.’’
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