Organisations Urge FG To Increase Budget For Primary Health Sector

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and the People’s Rights Organisation (PRO) have appealed to the Federal Government to increase the budget for the primary healthcare sector of the country.

The centres made the call on Thursday in Abuja at the opening of a two-day civil society summit, saying that primary healthcare is the sector that touches the lives of rural people and indigent citizens.

The Lead Director, of CSJ, Dr Eze Onyekpere, stated that the CSJ is brainstorming on the policies and plans surrounding the 2023 health budget and to review and make a submission to the National Assembly before it passed the budget.

“The idea is that we are intervening; looking at the policies and plans of the federal government on health and how those policies and plans have reflected on the 2023 health budget proposal.

“The idea is to review and make a submission to the National Assembly at this point that they are yet to approve the budget, this is to avoid the poverty of remedial justice, crying after decisions have been taken.

“So, it is in our best interest to make those recommendations available to the authorities so that they can reflect them in the approved budget rather than wait until after the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) have done their part before we start complaining.

“We want more of the policies to be reflected in the budget, we want more money for primary healthcare, which is the healthcare that touches the lives of the poor and rural people, the ordinary Nigerians.

“We want the government to activate the vulnerable group funds under the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Act because the law says the government is supposed to make the provision of some money to activate the fund,” Onyekpere said.

Onyekpere alleged that the 2023 federal budget for the health sector had no provision for the vulnerable group fund as provided by the NHIA Act.

He, therefore, called on the federal government to budget more money for reproductive health and the nutritional sub-sector of healthcare, adding that there are policy frameworks where the government promises to do all these.