The authorities of the Healthcare Providers Association of Nigeria, Lagos State chapter, have called for a structured health care delivery system in order to make funds and resources available at all levels of care for the benefit of citizens.

 

Speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the association in Lagos on Tuesday, the HCPAN Chairman, Dr. Tunji Akintade, noted that though the health care providers were ready to deliver services to the best of their ability, primary health care centres were still substandard.

 

Urging the government at all levels to equip primary health centres in order to make them perform optimally, Akintade said, “When these facilities are upgraded to meet global standards, health workers will be more dedicated to improving the health status of their patients and community by providing accessible, affordable, quality health care services to everyone, regardless of ability to pay.”

 

The physician decried a situation whereby patients boycott primary health care centres in their communities, while they seek treatment for ailments that are better attended to at the primary health centres in secondary and tertiary centres.

 

He lamented that the advent of the National Health Insurance Scheme had depleted the resources of many private health care centres, instead of boosting them; urging the Federal Government to spread funds and enrollees between the private and public health sectors in order to make for balance and proper care.

 

While commending the NHIS under the leadership of the Executive Secretary, Dr. Femi Thomas, whom Akintade said had taken the scheme to higher levels, he said much still needed to be done in order to truly make health care delivery universal.

 

“HCPAN-Lagos seriously frowns at a situation whereby government collects funds and pays back to itself by giving enrollees of primary care to government hospitals. This process grinds the private provider sector and is capable of running us into extinction. This is not acceptable,” he warned.

 

He urged the government at levels to respect private health care service providers by returning their enrollees to them, and also by encouraging facility upgrade through the single digit loan or grant to facilities that pass the set criteria through recognised statutory bodies such as HCPAN.

 

“This way, we shall be talking of quality care of international standards, while regulatory bodies would have fulfillment of purpose,” Akintade said.

 

He counselled against a situation whereby patients under the scheme are still restricted in the number of hospitals they could use.

 

“If an NHIS enrollee is made to access health care delivery in communities outside his area of abode, things may not work as they should,” Akintade warned.

 

He said in the case of an emergency, when a health care facility is far flung from the residence of the patient, things might take ugly turn before he reaches his service provider.

 

Akintade added that because of limited choices in the number of hospitals made available to them, in many cases, enrollees may not have adequate information about the hospitals they may have chosen as their service providers, especially in terms of expertise on their ailments.

BY SOLAADE AYO-ADERELE