Nigerian Medical Association said it is shocked that
N60 billion, equivalent of 1% of consolidated revenue
guaranteed by the National Health Act to fund basic health,
is missing from the 2016 budget.
It said President Muhammadu Buhari's N6.08 trillion
"budget of change" only provides N1, 448 per capita health
spending, lower than the N1, 546 per capita spending in
2015, compared with a recommendation of N6, 908 by the
World Health Organisation.
In a statement on Friday, the NMA asked the National
Assembly to "urgently review and revise the paltry allocation
of N221.7 billion to the health ministry in the 2016
Appropriation Bill."
NMA president Dr Kayode Obembe
expressed dismay at "the sharp departure
from the prescribed 15% of the national
budget for health made in 2001 in a
meeting of African Heads of States and Government which
Nigeria hosted in Abuja."
He said for Nigeria to go against its own commitments in
the face of challenges in health was a "huge moral burden."
Allocation for health amounts to only 3.65% of the 2016
budget, according to NMA, and would "never encourage the
advancement of universal health coverage which is the only
panacea towards improving availability, access, quality and
efficiency of the health services to reduce the disparaging
health indices which continue to malign the image of our
country in the comity of nations."
Obembe said “It is our considered opinion that Nigeria
should show the way and provide leadership in Africa after
having failed in this regard since 2001."
Health allocation has hovered between three and six percent
since 2001, compared with one-third of countries at the
Abuja Declaration that have allocated at least 10% of their
budget to health.
Tanzania, Rwanda, Swaziland, Ethiopia, Malawi and Central
African Republic have all marked up to 15% of their budget
for health, according to WHO figures, the NMA said.
"It is on this premise that we call on the National Assembly
as the only organ that could mitigate this looming disaster in
the healthcare delivery sector in 2016 at this juncture, to
look dispassionately without any partisan sentiments at
what should be done to substantially increase the allocation
to the health ministry in order to deliver better healthcare to
the Nigerian people," said Obembe.
He said despite government's lofty plans to revitalise 1000
primary health centres by 2017 and upgrade tertiary
hospitals to centres of excellence in order to mitigate
medical tourism, only commensurate funding could drive
the proposals to reasonable actualisation.
"In this era of reduction in oil revenue, the economy will rest
mainly on human resource potentialities and manpower
developmental output," said Obembe.
"Therefore the only road to economic recovery is for the
Government to guarantee basic minimum package of
healthcare to every citizen through Universal Health
Coverage, UHC.
"The panacea for the UHC is Community Based Health
Insurance. This is achievable by increased budgetary
allocation to healthcare (15%) and operationalization of
National Health Act."

www.medicalworldnigeria.com/2016/01/n60bn-health-fund-missing-from-2016-budget-nma

This rubbish croped up when the budget went missing only to reappear in aisha dirty kitchen.

[size=50pt]BABA ONE CHANCE [/size] - [size=50pt]DAURANOID[/size]