‘70% of Nigeria’s Population Rely on Primary Healthcare Facilities’

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, has said that 70 per cent of Nigerians presently live in the rural areas where the hospital facility closest to them are primary healthcare centres.

He also said with regard to COVID-19 vaccination strides, the agency had been able to fully vaccinate 53 per cent of the eligible population in the country.

Speaking during a media parley in Abuja to review performance of its COVID-19 intervention efforts, Shuaib said that a large proportion of Nigeria’s  population are in rural areas, adding that over 70 percent are in rural areas where the closest hospital facility are the primary health centres

He also said that there are challenges in the primary health care space, which needed to be addressed if Nigeria is to achieve the set target on universal health coverage.

Shuaib said: “The things we’re going to say to our leaders in 2022 or 2023 is that we need more human resources. We need the right infrastructure. We need the right equipment, commodities, utilities and our primary health care centers, that it is better to lay a very solid foundation for your health system and that foundation is primary health care, instead of spending huge amounts of resources building large primary large tertiary care facilities, fantastic specialties hospitals, where people don’t even go to.

“Large proportion of our population is  in rural areas over 70 per cent are un rural areas. And what is the access that they have to health care it has to be in the primary health care centers if you’re able to manage these conditions are the primary health care centers you see that there is  deconjunction of the tertiary health services so that doctors, especially in the tertiary health centers, will be focusing on more complex disease conditions, not a situation where you find people lining up in the outpatient department of tertiary hospitals trying to treat just diarrhea or malaria”.

Shuaib stated that government has ambitions to turn around the situation of our primary health care centres for good but that things are not in any way close to where it should be.

However, the director said that country has witnessed substantial progress in the last few decades even with under funding of the primary health care.

“When you look at what’s happening in the space, you’ve seen how despite our meager resources, the state of primary health care in a number of states we’ve been able to provide the leadership to galvanize the sub national level towards achieving polio eradication.

“So we have our challenges in the primary health care space, but it is very clear that we’re on the right path. We’re finally on the right path towards achieving our goals. The things that we keep to say that we keep saying are the things we’re going to say to our leaders in 2022 or 2023.

“That we need more human resources. We need the right infrastructure. We need the right equipment, commodities, utilities and our primary health care centers, that it is better to lay a very solid foundation for your health system and that foundation is primary health care, instead of spending huge amounts of resources building large primary large tertiary care facilities, fantastic specialties hospitals, where people don’t even go to,” he said.

According to Shuaib, the idea of developing and equipping the  primary health care centres is that where the country is able to manage certain health conditions in the primary health care centers, it lead to the  deconjunction of the tertiary health services so that doctors, especially in the tertiary health centers, will be focusing on more complex disease conditions.

He said that a situation where you find people lining up in the outpatient department of tertiary hospitals trying to treat just diarrhea or malaria is no longer acceptable.

“If people are in a tertiary hospital and they have malaria, it has to be due to complicated malaria not you know, you know, uncomplicated malaria. So, this government has made a lot of progress in terms of primary health care compared to previous government,” he said.

Speaking about the December, 2022 COVID-19 vaccination target by the agency, Shuaib said they have exceeded expectations.

“We had told Nigerians that by December 2022, we’ll be able to cover 70% of the eligible. So at this point, we’re at the point where we’ve been able to fully vaccinate 53% of the eligible population, but for those that have gotten their first dose, we have been able to reach up to 63%.

“So if you look at the mart, we’re doing very, very well and actually we did not expect that we’ll be able to achieve this again, when you put the kinds of infrastructure, the number of human resources that we have side by side with you know, the number of people that who have vaccinated I think we have to bring it down to the leadership provided by Mr. President, the Vice President, the governors, our traditional leaders, who have, you know, provided the right information about COVID-19,” he said .

Going forward, Shuaib said the agency is going rely on the partnership with state governors and the media to provide the right information to educate our community members about the usefulness of routine immunization.