The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Nigeria have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to improve health care.
Based on the agreement, the USAID, it is understood, will commit $45 million over the next five years towards improving primary health care services in the nation’s capital.
The funds will be deployed through four existing health activities: the Integrated Health Programme, Breakthrough Action, Health Workforce Management, and the Global Health Supply Chain, according to the Mission Director USAID/Nigeria, Anne Patterson.
Nigeria’s health minister, Dr Osagie Ehanire, had said in December 2020 that the country did not have enough primary health care centres for its citizens.
‘We have barely one-third of the required 9,855 PHCs, which define UHC, to bring health closer to the people and begin to address Nigeria’s appalling health indices’, the minister said at a ministerial health sector media engagement.
He said the government was planning to commence the Health Sector Next Level Agenda to improve primary health care in the country.
In her remark, Patterson said though the health status of the FCT population was fair when compared with other states of the federation, the FCT had seen an increase in the influx of people from other parts of the country.
According to her, this population increase was putting stress on the available public infrastructure, especially primary health care facilities, which are ill-equipped and under-resourced to address the increased health needs of the residents.
‘The purpose of the MoU is to support the revitalisation of the FCT health care system to deliver quality, affordable, and sustainable preventive and primary health care services to the residents of FCT’, she said
‘With the signing of this MoU, USAID expects to apply global best practices and provide high-level technical expertise to assist the FCTA to meet their health improvement goals to operationalise their health plans and their reform strategies’.
The FCT Minister of State, Dr Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu, signed the MoU on behalf of the FCT administration, acknowledging the tremendous role of USAID/Nigeria in the development of health care facilities in the capital.
The MoU, it was gathered, specifies that the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) would serve as the baseline for overall health status improvement, while the 2023 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey would serve as the end line survey.
Source: ThisDay
Photo source: Global Financing Facility
