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Investment in health sector: Stakeholder wants FG to introduce new policies

Investment in health sector: Stakeholder wants FG to introduce new policies

NAN-HG-5
Policy
By Olasunkanmi Onifade
Abuja, July 7, 2017 (NAN) An FCT-based Hospital Development and Management Company has advised the Federal Government to introduce new policies and regulatory frameworks in the healthcare industry to attract private sector investment.

Crystal Thorpe Managing Director, Ugonna Ogueri, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday that with such policies, there would be reversal in medical tourism and improved quality of healthcare in the country.

“Quality metrics needs to be standardised across the healthcare sector which will help in the monitoring and supervision of medical services in Nigeria for better outcomes, especially in a changing environment of diagnosis and disease burden.

“This will give Nigerians confidence to seek care at home, policies targeted at developing centres of excellence in those areas that take Nigerians out of the country will help reduce the incidence of medical induced tourism.

“It will also curb brain drain and boost the sector’s contribution to our national economy which will translate to increased taxes for the government,” she said.

Ogueri said that if the policies and frameworks were properly channeled it would also help preserve foreign exchange reserves to boost the economy.

“If we go by projections, by 2050 Nigeria will have 400 million people, so you can imagine the level of healthcare infrastructure that is going to be required in the country,” Ogueri said.

She stressed the need to use technology to accelerate growth and bridge the infrastructure gap in order to support the growing population.

“Nigeria is tackling communicable diseases to a large extent, especially in developing primary healthcare centres, and with the push for universal health coverage, we can achieve basic healthcare for our citizens.

“We also need to effectively manage diagnosis and treatment, particularly for long-term conditions which are often non-communicable to improve the overall health of Nigerians,” Ogueri said.

She said that government needed to leverage on the private sector and foreign investment in achieving its objective for the healthcare sector, adding that Crystal Thorpe is committed to supporting the government in this regard.

“Crystal Thorpe is a hospital development and management company which operates hospitals, diagnostic centres and supports training of medical personnel to improve healthcare outcomes.

“We bring best practices to service delivery leveraging our international experience and relationships,” Ogueri said.

She, however, added that Nigeria was experiencing growing episodes of cancer cases year-on-year according to the 10-cancer registries in the country.

Ogueri said that policies should be put in place to address some of the issues to do with early detection and awareness, standardised level of care, stronger healthcare financing mechanisms and monitoring. (NAN)
OEO/OFN/MST
Edited by Felix Nwadioha/Muhammad Suleiman Tola

General news

Employ skilled youths, NEPAD tasks private sector

Employ skilled youths, NEPAD tasks private sector

NAN-H-105

Employment

By Lizzy Okoji

Abuja, March 1, 2017 (NAN) Mrs Gloria Akobundu, the National Coordinator, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), has called on the private sector to employ beneficiaries of its skills acquisition training.

She made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.

According to her, NEPAD Nigeria is making plans to give the data of youths who have passed through its skills training programmes to private companies and investors in Nigeria for job opportunities.

“We are planning to partner with the private sector, the Chambers of Commerce, to come up with a programme where we will give the data of all the trained youths to private sectors and investors in Nigeria.

“This is for them to make available job opportunities at their various companies so that the youths are not just trained and go back home to sit idle.

“That has been the challenge of other training programmes when youths are trained and left on their own.

“We want to make our youths employable because the complaint by most private sectors and investors are that Nigerian Youths are not employable which is why they would rather import their own labour.

“That is why we want to embark on this skills training which could also be likened to the finishing school, because even when you graduate, you still go for training to fine tune yourself.

“ We are targeting as much youths as we can to benefit from this programme and who would have access to starting funds and starter kits to become self-reliant,’’ Akobundu said.

She explained that the training also aimed at making the beneficiaries employers of labour so that after acquiring the skills they can employ others and also retrain them.

She disclosed that a mentorship programme has been designed by NEPAD Nigeria to monitor the beneficiaries after they have been facilitated with funds and starter kits.

The coordinator said the mentorship department would do a regular follow up on beneficiaries, pay them surprise visits to ensure that they are actually utilising the funds and starter kits.

Akobundu pointed out that one major challenge is the fact that after most capacity building trainings, beneficiaries misuse the funds and kits, and return to becoming a burden to the society.

She therefore called for collaboration with the Ministry of Youths and Sports so that they would be able to track and monitor the activities of the beneficiaries with their data with a view to addressing these challenges.

Besides, she said that the first phase of the training initiative might not capture the entire youths of Nigeria but it hopes to accommodate as many youths as possible in its expanded programme. (NAN)

LIZ/MST

Edited by Muhammad Suleiman Tola