2016 budget: NBA advocates 15 per cent for health sector …Fayose kicks against quackery By; Oladele Adedayo, Ado-Ekiti.

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2016 budget: NBA advocates 15 per cent for health sector …Fayose kicks against quackery

By; Oladele Adedayo, Ado-Ekiti.
The President of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Kayode Obembe has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to increase the 5% budgetary provision being allocated to health sector annually to 15% to be able to actualize the Universal Health Coverage.
Obembe, who made the advocacy during the NMA National Executive Council meeting tagged: “Ekiti 2015” Thursday in Ado-Ekiti lamented that poor budgetary allocation to the health sector has been impeding the quality of health delivery to reach the grassroots.
Obembe posited that the National Health Insurance Policy should be made compulsory by government for all citizens, saying only 7% of the population is enjoying the scheme.
“The NHIS which has been operational since 2005 has covered only 7% of the population. In order to achieve the goal of universal health coverage, resource mobilization, risk pooling and strategic purchasing should all be at the community level”,he advised.
However, the state Governor, Mr. Ayo Fayose urged Nigerian Medical Doctors to put machinery in motion to curtail quackery in the health sector, adding that the development constitutes a great threat to many innocent Nigerians.
Fayose, who decried the rampancy of quackery in the system and its backlash on the society, urged the NMA to fish out quacks among them and make them face the wrath of law.
“What we need to develop the health sector is for the doctors to exhibit attitudinal change. We have to go beyond seminars and workshops. Doctors must continue to show patriotism. They must pay their taxes by showing responsibility to the society they belong.
“Under my government, CONMESS and CONHESS were implemented. The College of Medicine of the Ekiti State University and the School of Nursing were accredited by professional bodies. I have placed high premium on your welfare and I will continue to do my best to develop health sector”, Fayose said.
Meanwhile the World Health Organisation said the country would have long become a polio free country but for federal government’s lack of political will to equip the health sector in the past.
The international organization said the country would be saving a staggering sum of N1.5 billion annually to develop health sector if declared polio free in 2018 as proposed by the federal government.
The WHO Representative in Ekiti, Dr. Adeniji Akinyemi said it was rather disturbing that polio has proved to be the most complex diseases to eradicate in Nigeria, hinging this on lack of political will on the side of the government.
The Community Health Expert said: “Nigeria is set to be declared polio free state in 2018, but to actualize this, we have to first deliver the country free of Type 2 Polio virus which causes paralysis. But we have to muster enough political will to actualize this by showing commitment to health sector”.

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