TheCable

Isaac Adewole, minister of health, says his ministry will deliver free healthcare to 100 million Nigerians in the next two years.

The minister also lauded the efforts and commitments of Bill Gates and Aliko Dangote’s foundations towards the eradication of malnutrition in Nigeria.

In an interview with Osasu Igbinedion on The Osasu Show, the minister said Dangote and Gates were committing $100 million towards the eradication of malnutrition in the country.

“They [Gates and Dangote] are investing $100 million; it is quite a huge sum which to me is very commendable and we will want to see other Nigerians, wealthy individuals emulate them,” he said.

“The investment and the activities will really be concentrated on the northern states where the percentages of malnourished children are very high. To me, that is where we will really invest.

“As a ministry we have already done something in this regard; we manage acute malnutrition over the last couple of years. We have targeted about one million children and also in the next 100 days we will be targeting another 200,000 children with acute malnutrition.

“One of the things we want to do is to key into the federal government programme of giving food to primary school children and the school feeding programme.”

110 HEALTHCARE CENTRES IN 90 DAYS!

Speaking on free health care in the country, Adewole said “as a proof of concept”, the ministry of health would deliver 110 PHC in the next three months.

“We have done a lot of work and we will want to look at it from two perspectives; we will want to look at the IDPs as presently situated and we will want to look at the broader context of making sure Nigerians, irrespective of where they live, have access to health care.

“We intend to revitalise primary care services across the country, we will operate a universal coverage adopting the universally accepted concept of one primary healthcare centre per political ward and that entails we offer health care services to 100 million Nigerians in the next two years and this will be free”.

BOREHOLE IN EVERY PHC – EVERY POLITICAL WARD

“One of the things we want to do under the revitalised PHC programme is that each of these revitalised, reinvigorated PHCs will have an industrial borehole.

“So, we can offer water to the people, clean drinkable water, and there will be solar electricity so we can have the ability to keep our vaccines in safe conditions. We will then use this new reinvigorated primary healthcare centres for the focus of community development nationwide.

“We expect that the people will come there to fetch water; farmers will come there to draw water; some cattle rearers, some farmers with animals will come there to fetch water for their animals and by so doing we will promote a new concept of community development across the country.”