Osinbajo said this in his keynote address at the launch of
the Community-Based Health Research Innovative Training and Services Programme
in Abuja.
According to him, Nigeria accounts for only two per cent of
the world’s population but accounts for 14 per cent of the world’s maternal
death burden.
“Similarly, our country loses 2,500 children under the age
of five every day due to largely preventable causes, including the lack of services
that skilled birth attendants could provide. It is of interest that 80 per cent
of these death burdens occur in the primary health care and community levels,”
he said.
Osinbajo, who was represented by the Minister of Women
Affairs, Pauline Tallen said no country can boast of effective healthcare
delivery without adequate and well-distributed human resources for health.
“No matter how much of a masterpiece the architecture of a
health facility is, or how sophisticated the equipment are, or even the
availability of the commodities, a health care delivery system will not
function optimally if there are not enough skilled workers”.
“There is no better way to tackle the challenges of health
care delivery in Nigeria than to close the gaps in the equitable availability
of skilled health workers in Nigeria’s PHC facilities. This can be achieved by
a creative measure such as the CRISP which is the Community-based Health
Research, Innovative Training and Services Programme.”
“I can confidently tell you that President Muhammadu Buhari
and I are ever passionate about interventions that would help to improve the
health and wellbeing of the Nigerian people, and I have no doubt in the
capacity of Dr Faisal and his team.”
He said the CRISP initiative will make skilled health
workers from teaching hospitals and federal medical centres available to offer
services in the PHCs across the country.
Also, the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire in his
address said, Nigeria is facing the challenges of gross inadequacy and inequity
in the availability of human resources for health, especially skilled birth
attendants, doctors, nurses, midwives, and Community Health Extension Workers
trained on Modified Life-Saving Skills across in PHCs.
Ehanire said, “Aside from the problems of gross inadequacy
and inequitable distribution of our skilled health care workers, we are also
facing the problem of their attrition from the PHC facilities.
“With this kind of situation, no matter how much you invest
in building and equipping a health care facility, if there are no skilled
workers to provide the needed services, it is as good as there are no health
care services for the people.”
The minister noted that the CRISP initiative will help to
transform the PHCs.
“The initiative will leverage our teaching hospitals and
federal medical centres in all the states of the federation to pull together
skilled health care workers to the PHC centres in our communities where they
will routinely provide services and mentorship, as well as build the capacity
of the PHC workers.”
“CRISP has been carefully conceptualised and designed in
ways that would be helpful towards the realisation of government’s vision of
Universal Health Coverage,” he said.