Saheed Afeez Ayinde & Hassan Aisha Eniola
The Lagos gubernatorial candidate for the Action Alliance Political Party, AbdurRazaq Tope Balogun discussed his plans designed for the Lagos health sector at the parley organized by the Nigerian Medical Association, Lagos branch at Marriot Hotel Ikeja, Lagos recently.
The event which had in attendance, chairman of the association and other executive members as well as Lagos State chairman of the Medical Guild in Lagos, Head of Doctors in Private Practice among other dignitaries including eight Gubernatorial candidates.
Tope Balogun in his address to analyze ‘H’ factor in his Lagos REBIRTH Agenda communicated his findings and plans to rebrand the Lagos health sector for the masses.
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In his words “Action Alliance has an agenda, for the Gubernatorial contest and we call it the Lagos REBIRTH.
The REBIRTH is the code name for that project.”
“The H at the end stands for Healthcare delivery. Through our design we were able to communicate and bring in people from that sector to actually look at the sector critically before putting up what we are going to be doing and as a result, many of the challenges that were presented today were identified earlier before today.”
He stated the unparallel efforts contributed by his team of researchers in order to understand the problems faced by the people employed in the health sector.
“Unfortunately, the FOI bill is not operational in Lagos. So, we couldn’t get any information that are adequate enough. But, from the data collected through those people in service presently within the health sector, we were able to detect that the health sector is having serious issues. People that are leaving the country are not leaving because they are not well paid in the real sense but because governance in Lagos or let me say Nigeria is not well taken care of.”
“They are Intertwined with the issue of security. You know the Hallmark of governance is comfort, giving comfort to the citizens. Many people that are out of the country are not going because of the renumeration, they are out there because they are getting the comfort they desire in life.”
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He identified factors affecting the Nigerian medical practitioners as an hindrance for them to fully showcase their professionalism and even contribute to development of the health sector for the benefit of the masses.
“That is why the government of Lagos state has to do more and that is what we are bringing on through the REBIRTH agenda starting from the issue of protection of lives and property and the likes.”
“By the time we bring all these things together, those people at the health sector will not be willing to leave because they are patriots just like we and they want to contribute what they have learnt to better the situation of Nigerians but unfortunately, government are not doing enough like I told somebody last year January I had an accident, I had my femur broken, I was operated in Lagos by a Nigerian doctor and as today, I am walking with my two feet not on crutches, not on walking stick.”
“That means they are very good enough to deliver on their profession. But the government is not supportive, that’s why they are leaving.”
He addressed how the Lagos health sector has been under financed by the state government with comparison between the 2020 allocation and its reduction in 2021 budgets for the health sector with its ripple effects.
“The issue of financing is an issue, the issue of taking care of the health security from the primary, secondary and tertiary aspect of the health sector are not being taken care of adequately by the government because they are not actually looking at the underlining effect of not taking care of those people since they are not directly affected.”
“On financing as a case study, let me quickly say Four different ways have been identified to be a major way to finance the health sector in Lagos.
-The government budget, in 2020 they had a particular budget, in 2021 they reduced the percentage of the budget which is supposed not to happen because when we have increase in the population, we are supposed to have increase in the budgetary allocations and increased Infrastructures. That is what is causing problems today in Lagos.”
He pointed out how unavailability of infrastructures to contain population of Lagosians is affecting proper healthcare.
“Look at the schools, more people are being given birth to, more people are migrating into Lagos but we are having reduced numbers of schools that are not commensurate to the population of Lagos and that is what is happening to other facilities too”.
“People will tell you we want to build more facilities, the facilities that are even available are not well financed by the present day government.”
-“The Insurance scheme, I had opportunity to enjoy the insurance scheme of Lagos through my usage of the facility of Lagos, but unfortunately the insurance scheme is not well popularized. We need to have a kind of revolution. Before Fashola came, there is tax law that are being operated in Lagos, but when His Excellency Babatunde Fashola came in to have a revolution in tax reforms, We have more money coming into Lagos state. The insurance scheme is something that is operational in Lagos and that’s a method of financing the health sector but it is not popularized.”
“Many people are out of the Insurance scheme and this is something we are going to be having a revolution on, so that we can have enough money.”
-“Donor agencies are always willing to support but they have trust issues. we can all see what happened during the COVID-19 era, we can all see it, we are Nigerians. we knew what happened, the money that were pumped in through that sector were not judiciously used.”
-“The private individuals will patronize the government facilities but pay subsidized rates”
Moreover, being an ICT expert, we will use technology to synchronize the health facilities such that every patient will have a singular card to be able to have access to any health care facility in Lagos without a need to open new files for every hospital visited.”
