Association flays 3.9% allocation to health sector in 2018 budget

The National Association of Community Health Practitioners of Nigeria (NACHPN) has flayed the 3.9 per cent allocated to the health sector in the 2018 budget.
The Acting General Secretary of the Association, Ibama Asiton, disclosed this stand in Abuja yesterday.

According to him, the 3.9 per cent allocated to the sector would impede the implementation of the Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family at Scale (PACFaH@Scale).

Asiton said the partnership was intended to improve the health indices at the grassroots level, adding that the provision was the lowest the country had made in recent times.

He said: “In 2015, 5.7 per cent of the budget was allocated to the health sector. We must ask ourselves, if the 2018 health budget provided enough resources to consolidate the good work of the primary health care providers who are working within the Primary Health Care Under One Roof.

“Will this budget enable the minister of health to keep his promise of revitalising 10,000 primary health care centres across the country?” He disclosed that PACFaH@Scale, which ended this year, followed the old partnership for advocacy in child and family project, adding that a new project would run till 2022.

The acting secretary expressed concern that inadequate funding may threaten the initiative.“Government must make adequate budgetary provisions for health and implement important national health policies. This includes the National Health Act 2018 and the policy on primary healthcare under one roof,” he said.

Asiton added that if the 2018 proposal was indeed a budget of consolidation, adequate provisions ought to be made for the Community Health Influencers, Promoters and Services (CHIPS) initiative.

He said: “While the overall national budget had grown by 92 per cent, from N4.49trillion in 2015 to N8.61 trillion in 2018, the same cannot be said of the budget for health.

“The budget for the sector had only grown by a meager14 per cent. The country’s prosperity, which reflected in the growth of previous budgets has not impacted positively felt in the health sector.”

Asiton warned that Nigeria could drop beyond the 2017/2018 global competitive Index report of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which ranked the country’s health system 136th out of 137 countries of the world.He urged the National Assembly to reverse the abysmal allocation as part of its oversight functions.