Breakdown Of The 2018 Health Budget Proposal
The N340 billion allocated to health means that government plans to spend N1,888 on each citizen for the whole year. It is estimated that Nigerians spend N359.2 billion on medical tourism annually. The budgetary allocation is against the backdrop of recent outbreaks of Monkey pox, Measles and Lassa fever, and the fight to end polio and high maternal and child deaths. The country is also beset by poor primary health facilities, lack of functioning cancer machines or treatment centres, poor health emergency responses and low coverage of the health insurance scheme, among other issues.
In the 2018 health budget proposal, N269.34 billion was earmarked for recurrent expenditure which refers mainly to expenditure on operations, wages and salaries, purchases of goods and services, and current grants and subsidies; while N71.11 billion is for capital expenditure. Though there was a little increase in capital expenditure when compared to the N51.1bn earmarked for it in 2017, in percentage term it was a decline as the 2017 budget was N7.4 trillion while that of 2018 budget is N8.6trillion. Details of the budget proposal revealed that health came 12th as Power, Works and Housing got the highest capital project proposal with N555.88 billion, almost eight times that of health.
Nigeria’s health situation is of growing concern especially in the insurgency ravaged North Eastern region where access to medical care has diminished. Various statistics also show that Nigeria has one of the worst health care delivery records in the world. According to the World Health Organization, Nigeria is rated 187th out of 191 countries in terms of health care delivery. WHO said one-third of more than 700 health facilities have been destroyed in the country and about 3.7 million people are in need of health assistance. The health body placed Nigeria at third highest in infant mortality rate in the world.
Medical experts described as worrisome the recent figure released by international agencies which put Nigeria’s maternal mortality rate at 58,000 in 2015. This showed that Nigeria recorded the second highest maternal death rate in the world. Apart from poor health interventions apparently caused by lack of funds, the sector has also experienced series of industrial actions by its workers over unpaid salaries and other administrative anomalies. Infrastructure, building roads and bridges are bad but then even when you build the road and bridges it’s only a healthy population that can utilize them. When you talk about agriculture, it’s only when the farmer is healthy that he can be more productive in the farm.
