Health
VINCENT Okpala, Anambra State Commissioner for Health, says his ministry will partner PharmAccess Foundation in facilitating the upgrade of hospitals in the state.
Receiving the team from the PharmAccess Foundation, which paid an advocacy visit to his office at the Jerome Udoji Secretariat Complex, Awka, Okpala said that the partnership was a welcome development in the health sector of the state, noting that Gov. Willie Obiano had been emphasising how to improve the healthcare sector for functional service delivery to Ndi Anambra.
“Government has created enabling environment for investors to come in and equally ready for public private partnership with our hospitals,’’ he said.
The Country Director PharmAccess, Njide Ndili, said the Group’s Nigeria office opened in 2007 with a vision to increase access to affordable and better healthcare for people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Ndili explained that PharmAccess mobilised public, private resources for the benefit of healthcare providers and patients through a combination of health insurance and loans to healthcare providers to ensure standardized service.
“PharmAccess has been working in the Nigerian healthcare sector for about nine years, in the course of executing projects, we have realised that there is a lot of capacity for the personnel to be able to manage the facilities as businesses.
“We think it is important for us that we develop a curriculum in partnership with a credible business school that will teach healthcare professionals how to run their hospitals as businesses.
“We recognise the importance of supporting healthcare professionals in improving their skills in areas of business planning, leadership, quality and inventory management, thus strengthening their capacity to build sustainable businesses.’’
The country director said that healthcare professionals needed management skills in order to ensure profitable business in the system.
The Programme Director, PharmAccess Nigeria, Uzodinma Osisiogu, said that the aim of the advocacy visit was to partner with the ministry in order to improve the state’s healthcare sector.
“Our support activities are grouped into four work packages: Demand–side financing activities and Provider Assessment and Capacity building of state quality assurance teams.
Regulatory support to the State Provider Accreditation and Empanelment Agency; and Access to Finance framework to encourage private sector participation in the management of government owned primary healthcare centres.
Osisiogu said that their goals included providing technical assistance to states seeking to operate their mandatory health insurance law and deepen engagements with federal, state ministries of health and primary healthcare development agencies.
– Nov. 11, 2019 @ 11:39 GMT |
Tags: Anambra State Health Ministry to partner PharmAccess Foundation in hospital upgrade
