FG budgets N20bn for indigent Nigerians

The Federal Government has budgeted N20bn to scale up Conditional
Cash Transfers in 30 states for the health of women and children this
year, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Millennium
Development Goals, Dr. Precious Gbeneol, has said.
Under the CCT scheme, the government intends to empower over 56,000
indigent Nigerians from 24 states with about N10bn while a total of
224,000 children of school age will also be sustained.
A statement issued on Monday in Abuja by the Head (Information and
Communications) in the MDGs Office, Dr. Christopher Otabor, quoted
Gbeneol as saying this during the 16th Annual General Meeting and
Scientific Conference of the Society of Family Physicians of Nigeria
held in Keffi, Nassarawa State, with the theme: 'Medicine and the
Law'.
According to her, the MDGs framework has helped to focus international
and local attention on improving the health of the most vulnerable in
the Nigerian society.
Gbeneol said, "Efforts are being made across board with other
initiatives such as the Conditional Grants Scheme as well as the
deployment of the groundbreaking mobile money technology to drive the
new scale of CCT up, for which President Jonathan has approved the sum
of N10bn; N20bn has been budgeted to scale up the CCT in 30 states for
the health of women and children this year, 2013."
The Presidential aide said that inadequate human resources remained a
major challenge to health care in Nigeria, adding that it must be
addressed in order to make the required progress.
She urged the participants to consider family medicine in the context
of equality of access and human rights which are the two major
enablers of development as set in the African Common Position on the
Post- 2015 Development agenda.
"In ensuring universality of access to quality health care in Nigeria,
issues such as sustainability, passage of the health bill, healthcare
financing, Gross Domestic Product, health budget ratio, Public-Private
Partnership, universal health insurance, among others will help health
care in the country," Gbeneol said.
She said the MDG office in collaboration with the Ministry of Health
and international development agencies are implementing programmes
such as the Midwives Service Scheme, Community Health, Extension
Workers initiative, the Village Health Workers Scheme, the Saving One
Million Lives Initiatives and the United Nations MDGs acceleration
Framework.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, in his keynote
address, commended the SOFPON members for the efforts they were making
to sustain family health and urged them to rise above some of the
impediments to accelerate the practice of family medicine in the
country.