Institute decries poor funding of medical services

A non-governmental organisation, Institute of Corporate Wellness and Public Health has expressed disappointment at the low allocation of funds to healthcare and social service delivery.

Speaking at a briefing in Abuja, Chairman of the Institute, Enitan Sanusi, said statistics showed only 6.1 per cent of the economy was attributed to healthcare in the country, adding that the organisation hoped to raise a minimum of $1 billion to augment social welfare delivery and healthcare services in the country.

His words: “A minimum of $1 billion will be raised in equity and long-term commitment to enhance healthcare services and social welfare and more importantly our vision is to raise total healthcare expenditure in Nigeria, adding that one of the goals of the summit is to increase the quality of life expectancy and need to raise the healthy adult life expectancy from 46 years to 64 years.

“Statistics says that only 6.1 per cent of the economy is attributed to healthcare when compared to other countries of the world but we want to increase the total health expenditure from 6.1 per cent to more than 10.1 per cent of Gross domestic Product (GDP), which is worth $60 billion.”

Sanusi noted that the harnessing strategic goals and implementing action plans for the health sector, besides increasing household, institution, government and corporate expenditure on total healthcare towards boosting healthy adult life.

According to him, the programme is intended to enable the Muhammadu Buhari government and private sector organisations overcome revenue shortfalls and meet their health and welfare programmes, stressing that it seeks to achieve an elevated global public-private partnership for healthcare and social welfare structures of stakeholders.

“The achievement of the programme is harnessing strategic goals and implementing action plans for the healthcare and social welfare sectors in the governance agenda, noting that it would attract foreign and local direct investments, management expertise and modern technologies to the total healthcare businesses for accelerated job creation and income growth.”