Osun Government Advised On Backup Emergency Health Plan

The Osun State Government has been advised to have a backup plan in case of health emergencies.

The backup plan would involve the establishment of a health security trust fund.

The fund when established would enable the state government to checkmate future disease outbreak and also address current health security risks confronting the state.

This call was made as part of recommendation at the end of a two-day review and validation meeting of COVID-19 and health security accountability scorecards in Osogbo on Thursday.

At the meeting were Civil Societies Organisations (CSOs) and other critic stakeholders in the health management sector.

The meeting organisers, African Health Budget Network (AHBN) while noting that the scorecard was developed to report CSOs review on Osun State’s capacity for preparedness and response to health security and COVID-19 called on the state government to map resources and institutionalise financing mechanism for health security including COVID-19 equitable recovery.

According to the organisers, "The State Primary Healthcare Development Agency should strengthen community and CSOs involvement to increase utilization of COVID-19 vaccines, improve routine immunization performance and support factual public information on COVID-19 in the state.

"CSOs working in the state, in the recommendations were also advised to engage state ministry of health and ministry of finance on the need to publish the state government’ 2020, 2021 and 2022 COVID-19 and Health Security expenditure report, engaged the state government on availability of adequate COVID-19 vaccines in all the state’s vaccination centers aimed at increasing uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and advocate for the strengthening of legislative oversight on budget performance for the implementation of the RMNCAEH+N Recovery Plan in the state."

Aminu Magashi Garba, the Coordinator, Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN), in his submission held that, "CSOs must be up and doing, engage and partner with governments either at the state or federal level to ensure that the needed decisions are taken to attain health security.

“We cannot dispute the fact there will be other forms of epidemics in the future, it is the responsibility of the government at all levels to ensure there is adequate health security by making available special and innovative funds.”

The organisers also charged CSOs working in Osun to constructively engage and collaborate with the State Ministry of Health to monitor/track allocation, donors support, loans and government releases for health security and COVID-19.