Yakubu Salisu, Kano The Chairman of the Kano State branch of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Prof. Mohammad Aminu Mohammad, has called on the Federal Government to fully operationalise the 2014 National Health Act which made provision, among others, of not less than one percent of consolidated revenue as Basic Health Provision Fund (BHPF) to cater for the emergencies and the medical bill for the less privileged members in the society.
He made this call at the weekend in Kano during a lecture to mark the end of a week-long activities organized to mark this year’s Physician Medical Week, with the theme ‘Declining Immunization Coverage: Threat to National Development and Security, Way Forward’.
According to him, the 2016/2017 National immunization coverage survey (NICS) indicates that only 33% of children 12-23 months of age had 3 doses of pentavalent vaccine against the global target of 90% and only 23% were fully immunized while 40% do not receive any vaccines from health system.
That the implication of this finding is that a large population of our children particularly under 5 years of age are unprotected and are therefore at the risk of dying from vaccine preventable diseases such as measles, diphtheria, pertussis, tuberculosis etc.
This scaring statistics, he said, are unacceptable to Nigerian doctors as it is a great danger and threat to the survival of our great Nation as no meaningful development can take place in a society where disease and death is ravaging the potential leaders and our hopes of tomorrow. Hence, the need for call for the Government at all levels as well as other stake holders to redouble effort to reverse the ugly trend.
Mohammad called on government to intensify their efforts in recruitment of more Doctors and other health care workers, training and retraining of the existing ones to keep face with the current expansion.
He made use of the event to appeal to the state government for a peace of land where they would build a doctors house where the less privileged members of the society would be attended to free of charge. Also that the association is in need of a bus for conveying it’s members anytime they are to embark on social responsibilities such as the medical mission.
