WHO calls for improved access to primary healthcare

Ex-PSN President Calls For Adequate Drug Regulatory Control, Funding
As the World Health Day is marked globally today, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for improved access to primary healthcare to achieve universal health coverage (UHC).

The World Health Day is marked every April 7, with the aim of spreading awareness about equal access to healthcare facilities worldwide, the importance of health and wellness, and to kill all myths around health.

The 2019 theme is: “Universal Health Coverage” with the slogan: “Health for All.”According to WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organisation’s new statistics highlight the need to improve access to primary healthcare worldwide and increase uptake, as report showed that uneven access to health services drives life expectancy gap in both sexes.

The report indicated that the gap between men and women’s life expectancy is narrowest, where women lack access to health services. In low-income countries, where services are scarcer, one in 41 women dies from a maternal cause, compared with one in 3,300 in high-income countries.

It added that there are fewer than four nursing and midwifery personnel per 1,000 people in more than 90 per cent of low-income countries, noting that where women can access health services, maternal deaths decrease, thereby lengthening women’s life expectancy.

The WHO report further stated that men are much more likely to die from preventable and treatable non-communicable diseases and road traffic accidents, as they access healthcare less than women in many circumstances.Dr. Tedros said the report, published to coincide with the World Health Day, seeks to focus on primary healthcare as the foundation of universal health coverage, adding that one of WHO’s triple billion goals is for one billion more people to have universal health coverage by 2023.

“This means improving access to services, especially at community level, and making sure those services are accessible, affordable, and effective for everyone – regardless of their gender,” he said.

Also, WHO Assistant Director General for Data, Analytics and Delivery, Dr. Samira Asma, said the statistics underscored the need to prioritise primary healthcare urgently to effectively manage non-communicable diseases and curb risk factors.“For example, something as simple as controlling blood pressure is just not happening on the scale needed, and tobacco use remains a leading cause of premature deaths,” he said.

Meanwhile, the past President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, (PSN) Olumide Akintayo has called on government to ensure professionalism, boost regulatory control, mobilise adequate funding and exercise political will in enforcement process to curb fake drugs in the country.He said: “You don’t want to imagine the embarrassment at regional and global meetings, when people ask what you are doing about fake drugs. Economically, you can see how diminished or outrightly insignificant the pharmaceutical sector’s contribution is relative to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in manufacturing and economy. If the Federal Government is serious about boosting GDP, the pharmaceutical sector remains its best bet, at least in the health sector.”To fix the pharmaceutical sector, Akintayo said Nigeria needed clear-headed and focused health administrators, as well as seasoned managers.