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00:00:07of of
00:00:14Tonight, on dateline Abuja, the state of Nigeria's health sector
00:00:18comes under scrutiny, hospitals are
00:00:20overstretched, critical infrastructure is deteriorating,
00:00:25of of essential medicines remain beyond the reach of many
00:00:28Nigerians while doctors. nurses and other health professionals
00:00:31continue to leave the country, so after years
00:00:35of promises, budgetary allocations and overside
00:00:38visits, what
00:00:40of exactly is changing?
00:00:42of honorable Amos Magaji, representing Zangun kataf Jaba
00:00:46Federal Constituency of Caduna State and chairman
00:00:49of the House Committee on Health
00:00:51of Institutions, joins us for a frank conversation
00:00:55on the state of healthcare in
00:00:57of Nigeria and particularly the challenge... confronting
00:01:01health facilities right here in the nation's capital, but that'l be after we
00:01:05bring you all the major stories from Nigeria's presidency in the past week.
00:01:09This is Deaklanda
00:01:13of Abuja.
00:01:15of
00:01:20of
00:01:32Hello and in welcome to Dateline Abuja, I'm Kayla Mega. From the
00:01:36decisions being taken at the presidency to the issues shaping the lives
00:01:39of Nigerians, we begin with the major developments
00:01:43of the past week. It's time for our Buja Rap. Nigeria has
00:01:46called for an
00:01:48of urgent reform of global governance structures
00:01:51of of and international financial institutions to better reflect contemporary economic and
00:01:55of demographic realities. Speaking at the 18th Brick Summit in New
00:01:59Delhi India.
00:02:00of Vice President Kashim
00:02:01of Shatima, who is representing President Bolatinubu, urged member states
00:02:05of breaks to push for more representative global
00:02:09of architecture, including reforms to the United Nations Security
00:02:12Council. Nigeria and India have agreed to rebuild their bilateral trade
00:02:16to its peak level of nearly 15 billion dollars, driven by
00:02:20India's request to renew crude oil
00:02:23of purchases from the country. The strategic commitment was reached during a
00:02:27bilateral meeting between Vice President Kashim. and the
00:02:31Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines
00:02:34of the Bricks Leader Summit in New Delhi. Bilateral trade
00:02:38a between the two countries deeped sharply from $14.95
00:02:42billion dollars in the 2021 to
00:02:452022 financial year to
00:02:48$7.13 billion dollars in 2024 to
00:02:52of 2025 due to reduced Indian crude purchases
00:02:56before recovering slightly to around 9 billion dollars in 2
00:03:002025 to 2026. Prime Minister
00:03:04Modi emphasized that resuming strong energy trade is vital to
00:03:08restoring commercial exchanges to previous highs.
00:03:11Beyond oil, the two nations agreed to expand
00:03:14of cooperation across key growth sectors, deepening ties in
00:03:17Fintech, digital public
00:03:19of infrastructure and creative industries. The first lady of Nigeria,
00:03:23Senator
00:03:24Olure Mitinu is calling for stronger collaboration among governments
00:03:28at all levels, traditional. and religious institutions,
00:03:32development partners and philanthropists to tackle Nigeria's maternal and
00:03:36newborn mortality burden. Senator Tinibus call came as the
00:03:40federal government rolled out 21500
00:03:43me kids, 4000 maternal food support parks and
00:03:4740,00 sets of newborn clothing for vulnerable women
00:03:51and families
00:03:52nationwide.
00:03:57Welcome
00:03:59of back. Nigeria's health. sector has never been short of promises,
00:04:02what remains in question is whether those promises are
00:04:06translating into functioning hospitals, adequate equipment, affordable
00:04:10machines and quality healthcare for ordinary
00:04:13Nigerians. The House Committee on health
00:04:16of institutions has been conducting overside
00:04:18of visits of across the country, but Nigerians are entitled to ask
00:04:22what happens after the cameras leave and the inspection reports are
00:04:26written, who is held
00:04:28a accountable of when hospitals critical
00:04:34of of equipment, who answers when facilities are operating beyond capacity, and where does the responsibility lie when billions
00:04:38allocated to healthcare does not produce the improvements
00:04:42Nigerians expect? my guest has also criticized the use
00:04:46of NYSE doctors to run primary healthcare centers and
00:04:50of raised questions about the management
00:04:55of of the drug revolving fund. but perhaps the bigger in question is this: after all the oversights, investigations and
00:04:59budget. interventions, can Nigerians point to
00:05:03measurable evidence that the health system is actually getting
00:05:06better? Tonight, we go beyond the rhetoric and ask what the National
00:05:10Assembly is doing
00:05:11and what it should... be doing differently, honorable Amos Magaji,
00:05:15representing Zangon kataf jaba federal constituency of Caduna
00:05:19State and chairman the house committee on health institutions joins
00:05:23us tonight on dateline
00:05:24Abuja,
00:05:29honorable amos magaj, welcome again today, thank
00:05:33you Kla for having me, okay
00:05:35so let's start from where we stopped, the last time we had you here, you said you were going
00:05:39to go, the committee, the house committee was going to go
00:05:43a tour of health institutions, mostly primary
00:05:47healthcare centers across the country, so let's start with the details
00:05:51of that tour, what happened with that oversight, what did you notice with
00:05:55our health institutions across the country? um, first of all, let
00:05:58me say uh, let me start on the positive note,
00:06:02okay, that uh, in many states there has been
00:06:05deliberate efforts to revitalize and
00:06:09strengthen our primary health uh sector. but
00:06:13then uh the health sector is not just about building,
00:06:17it's about service and service delivery, service
00:06:20delivery, and then also and then the service delivery does not come just
00:06:24like that, they need be system, there also need to be human resource for
00:06:28health, so many state have
00:06:30revitalized
00:06:32uh uh the primary health sector through the basic healthcare provision
00:06:36funds and that is what in I'm just coming from a conversation right now that
00:06:40we're having trying to move the basic healthcare provision
00:06:44fund from 1% to 2% consolidated revenue, so
00:06:48we wanted to see if it is working, because there's no need
00:06:52adding money to fail system, so I wanted to see how
00:06:56the primary health care in Nigeria is functioning, if the basic care health
00:07:00provision funds actually addressing some the health gap,
00:07:04if not, why should add money, but so went around all the state
00:07:08the federation, I think just few states now we have not been
00:07:11there, some them due to insecurity, some them also due to
00:07:15time, and then we saw remarkable improvement, some
00:07:19state governor, government are doing so well,
00:07:23and and then some of some other
00:07:26places, I think they need to sit up
00:07:30and make health a priority, you know, I, I,
00:07:34why health? when you think you
00:07:37have
00:07:39problems, it is when...
00:07:43you have health that you consider a problem, see healthy person
00:07:46has million needs,
00:07:50but sick person has just one needs to be
00:07:54healthy, and then the health of nigerian, and you cannot
00:07:58have a prosperous, productive nation if we don't have
00:08:02healthy nation, and the boring of health
00:08:05also, it can take family from
00:08:09middle class and bring them down to to to... to low or
00:08:13zero class, so that's why we also need to position
00:08:17our health system to work so as so that Nigerian can be
00:08:21productive and then the boring of health will not we on families, so we
00:08:25went around all the many state the federation, we saw what they are
00:08:29doing in the revitalization the primary
00:08:32healthcare center and let me say it this way, going forward i
00:08:36as nation, i think primary health should be
00:08:40the hospital for now, the hospital for the future, the
00:08:44reason why the tary health facility, if you go to jabi federal
00:08:48medical center now or national hospital, you will see today, mean
00:08:52today being 17th of uh of of
00:08:55september, you will see far far more than
00:08:59300 patient that went there to treat malaria, to treat
00:09:03cough, to treat some infection that would have been handle at the
00:09:07primary level, yes, and then sometime
00:09:10because the the... processes or
00:09:13the the lack of trust in the system, it now make them
00:09:17delay, and of course when it comes to healthcare needs delay
00:09:20is also dangerous, so people delay, and then
00:09:24what's supposed to be treated with 10,00
00:09:27becomes serious
00:09:30problem, and then at the end because of that it may result you spending
00:09:34200, 300 thous or even hospitalization, what's
00:09:38more death? you you've been, you've been talking about primary health. care
00:09:42centers, I remember one the things that you you you criticized early on
00:09:46uh was the fact that there were there were so many youth call members who were
00:09:50manning those primary health has that changed?
00:09:54yeah, is that something you heavily criticized
00:09:56at the time? yeah, the the issue is we are even looking at the situation
00:10:00whereby if we revitalize this and make it
00:10:04not,
00:10:04it's a priority, bad
00:10:04it's have a not to a coper in a
00:10:08primary health center, but what is more important is that if you have a
00:10:11structure? you don't put somebody that is on on on
00:10:14transit, okay? so you want, so that's what the issue is, it's not the
00:10:18qualification, no, no, not really the qualification, it's the investment
00:10:22in it, can the person is the person going to?
00:10:26coper had gone through the medical school and at
00:10:30fining medical school had gone through his house job which is
00:10:34internship and is now serving so anyhow the person have
00:10:37gathered some level of experience but
00:10:41is the person doing the service to say there certainly not
00:10:45but then that is not even the major problem the major problem we saw in
00:10:49many the primary health center are they
00:10:53choose the the CHOS, the
00:10:57community health officers, the
00:11:00the many years on on
00:11:03contract, they're not full staff, yeah, many
00:11:07them are not full staff, so so that that affect the
00:11:11system, and we have many looking for jobs, so we made
00:11:15call to many the state government to ensure
00:11:18that uh, they have a
00:11:22man-power uh analysis. where
00:11:26periodically they will begin to inject these people in the system
00:11:29that there are there are people that are committed to to working in the in
00:11:33the sector, but if somebody works for five years and yet is not
00:11:37perminant and then some the advice we gave some them was that
00:11:41once the window of employment comes through
00:11:45just make sure that you start considering those that are have
00:11:48been temporary staff so that tomorrow if you call out staff
00:11:52to come and work in your system they will believe that through.
00:11:57get injected into the
00:11:58that they system, easily you you are also advocating uh for the
00:12:02teatury health system uh to be on
00:12:05PPP based on what you found after your
00:12:09oversight? yeah, I i went
00:12:12to, I think
00:12:16all the tashary held institutions in
00:12:19Nigeria, except the Federal Medical Center,
00:12:22Zamfara, which... I had an interface
00:12:26with the the CMD, we we
00:12:28we we made several attempts to to leave Sokoto to
00:12:32Zamfara, it wasn't possible because the insecurity, but we
00:12:36have discovered something and um, okay, let me just say
00:12:40it this way, just last year, Cleveland Hospital made
00:12:43about 18 billion
00:12:46dollars, now lot the budget for health
00:12:49goes on many of this tertiary health institution, it's not
00:12:53bad, but I believe that if those money are channel to the
00:12:57primary health sector and then we have PPP
00:13:01arrangement where they will inject their
00:13:04phones, inject their experties, inject their managerial skills
00:13:08and then the government should concentrate, I believe that the government will even make
00:13:12more money, more money through those hospitals, so if you
00:13:16ask many the tertiary health institution, how much way
00:13:19I know that it is it is service, health is social service to the
00:13:23nation, but then if strengthen the primary health
00:13:26center, we allow the doctors in the tertiary
00:13:30health sector to do their own thing. now if you go to jab, you are
00:13:34meeting a consultant, federal medical center, the
00:13:38consultant will not just treat you like, he will make you pass
00:13:41through series of tests,
00:13:45examination before he sit down to treat, it's a
00:13:49consultant, now all those stary hospital have three basic
00:13:52mandate, training, research and
00:13:56health services, so when a taridy hospital
00:14:00is laidden with treatment of
00:14:04malaria and so, when do you think a consultant will be able to go into
00:14:08research? and because the primary health centers are
00:14:12not working, the pressure is on
00:14:15tertiary facility, and if they don't have money or transportation to
00:14:19go, you see they will delay. so your solution, and I'm trying to understand this model before
00:14:23we go a break, yeah. "your solution is, let all the funding from the
00:14:27federal government go to primary healthcare, strengthen that
00:14:31system, um, do proper training and staffing and and
00:14:34what not to make sure that the faith that the Nigerian has in primary
00:14:38healthcares centers uh is is brought
00:14:42back, yeah, and then they are functional, then the tertiary
00:14:45institutions should now partner with private
00:14:49sector, with the private sector to provide tertiary healthcare,
00:14:53tertiary healthcare, so so that's..." model that you pr yeah, that will also
00:14:57reduce medical tourism because there will be confidence in the
00:15:01system, look at this
00:15:02this way, Nigerians travel lot, be it on
00:15:06tourism, be it medical tourism or or
00:15:09whatever, when you go on for medical tourism anywhere in
00:15:13the world, you mean Nigerian doctors and I think with that we
00:15:17will have uh
00:15:19one of my my debuty say jakwada i think
00:15:23jakpa is to go jakpad. is to return, so if those
00:15:26systems are are put in place, you will discover that Nigerian
00:15:30doctors will be returning, and then mind, many of this hospital will not
00:15:34have collaboration with some of this... foreign
00:15:37a case in study look at Gariki general hospital, look at
00:15:41what uh uh Dr. Wadda had been able to transform that
00:15:45hospital, there is confidence, there is faith in the system,
00:15:49and another very critical thing
00:15:53is equipment, we go a short break, when we come back we'll
00:15:57talk more about this um the situation of our healthcare
00:16:01system, many people are worried about the
00:16:04viability of our healthcare and and the cost of
00:16:08treatment is another thing all together, so we'll talk about that when
00:16:14us on dateline abuja, we'll be right
00:16:15back.
00:16:26welcome back to dateline abuja, if you've just joined us, honorable Amos
00:16:30Magaji is our guest tonight and we're discussing healthcare, that's because he's
00:16:34the chair the house committee on health institutions and he just got back.
00:16:37from tour of our health institutions, thank you so much, thank you for being with us
00:16:41on the program, thank you, okay, so let's let's look at abuja, you mentioned few places
00:16:45that's that are doing well in your view, but last time you were here we had
00:16:49talked about the woose general hospital and then
00:16:52we talked about the capacity for the hospital in karu and nyan
00:16:55and you know how lot these places are filled to
00:16:59capacity
00:17:01over over the
00:17:05they are put a situation right now where the have to deal with more
00:17:08than they are built for, so your tour, did
00:17:12you go to these places and what's the situation, what are we going to do about
00:17:15woose and that hospital in nyan that's
00:17:19that is always filled to the brim? now i think for me
00:17:23solution to decongesting many these secondary
00:17:26facilities, one the solutions is to
00:17:30ensure that we have functional
00:17:33primary health centers, now the primary health centers are supposed to...
00:17:38to to support the
00:17:39secondary, um, lack of
00:17:43secondary, primary health in Nigeria
00:17:47is actually the cause that we are having huge
00:17:51burding, financial burding on health, for example,
00:17:55if somebody is just walking tracking along the road and you
00:17:59have some palpitation, you feel uneasy in your
00:18:02chairs, if there's a primary center near you, the person will just go
00:18:06there, and if if if the primary heart center
00:18:09is near you and is operational and people believe it did,
00:18:13you go there to check your bp, so the chances that somebody will
00:18:17have a stroke because you didn't
00:18:21know that his bp is high, we don't be there, and if you don't treat
00:18:24it the primary level, the problem gets to point where it
00:18:28will now become a tashary problem, and of
00:18:32course is cheaper at the primary
00:18:34level, it's more expensive.
00:18:38rece
00:18:38at the second at the secondary, not just the expense, but even the the disease
00:18:42condition. i think we should start by educating the
00:18:46Nigerian people, and i think that when it comes to primary
00:18:50healthcare, for many of us like see me, i'm thinking gary
00:18:53hospital, i'm thinking of going to where
00:18:56is the primary health care center in my
00:18:59neighborhood,
00:19:01you know, and i think maybe that's something we should start offly in the nation
00:19:04here, so for everyone who's watching us right now. 'if you can
00:19:08identify the primary health careare center in
00:19:11your neighborhood and then tell us are
00:19:14you ready because the the honorable amos this
00:19:18is your perview yeah they will innondate you with so let tell you the advantage of
00:19:22kela going to a primary health center near you the workers
00:19:26will sit up yes they will know oh this is uh
00:19:29kela if there is a problem with our system she will talk about it
00:19:33she will talk about it so they will sit up but if all they see
00:19:37the primary health center are people that probably don't even have recharge card
00:19:40to call or don't even have the connection with the people
00:19:44i there to complain, they will continue to
00:19:48offer uh minimal services
00:19:51uh uh they will be lakadistical in their in their services, but if they know
00:19:55that oh i can be reported so
00:19:57you there at the primary center also serve as feedback to
00:20:00strengthen it and until we begin to do
00:20:04that uh if you go to jabi now people complain,
00:20:08oh, i waited for one hour, i waited for 2 hours, why wouldon't you wait for two
00:20:11hours, if the primary malaria,
00:20:14malaria, and everybody wants to,
00:20:18we
00:20:18we we do that, but
00:20:19you see, the confidence need to be restored, and i
00:20:23said every nigerian should be to to be offering
00:20:26feedback the system, and until all of us start
00:20:30using those facility, it's not about building a
00:20:34primary healthcare center, it's not about employing doc. or
00:20:38nursies
00:20:39or or community health workers in primary health, but if you don't have
00:20:43faith in the system, if you don't all of us
00:20:47attempt to it and then improve it, it will not work. are you on
00:20:50x? yeah, you have an x handle? i have it, because i want
00:20:54people to send you the pictures their primary healthcare centers. i want you to
00:20:58see what the nigeria, listen, abuja, boy, i'm sure
00:21:01everyone around the country wants, because you are house
00:21:05com revitalization is going on health institutions, and if the
00:21:08revitalization is ongoing, we need to be able to point and say, okay,
00:21:12it is actually working, so maybe you can give us your ex handle so that those who
00:21:16are watching can feel free to tell you what is happening in their. realities
00:21:20because like you said, if we don't engage the system, we won't see
00:21:23it get better, so it's at Amos
00:21:26Gumna magaji, at Amos Gumna Magaji, all right, are you
00:21:30ready? very ready, we we like feedback like this, and we are
00:21:34working with primary healthcare, we are working with the ministry of health, we're working
00:21:38with some some with even some civil society,
00:21:41development development partners and to see that we
00:21:45wants primary health center to be the
00:21:48hospital for now. and the hospital for our future,
00:21:52with that it will reduce lot of thing, the maternal
00:21:55mortality will go down, the infant mortality will go
00:21:59down and the the the health seeking behaviors of
00:22:03Nigeria will go down, if you have anything you want
00:22:06to uh educate Nigerians, if you want to get Nigerians to
00:22:10know anything, mind you, if people in Abuja are
00:22:14healthy and somebody down there in Kavanchan or kai is not
00:22:18healthy, the all the... statistic at up, so when they
00:22:22say the maternal mortality rate in Nigeria is high, it is not
00:22:26contributed by every state, some few states, some few locality
00:22:29are the one that are given that body, but so if we are
00:22:33not all doing well, it will still
00:22:37affect our system. recently the minister of health was
00:22:40about a company that is coming to Nigeria here to establish, in fact they have
00:22:44actually start producing uh mosquito treated night, so
00:22:48instead of us uh uh
00:22:51importing mosquito treated net, we will now be
00:22:55producing and also look at our brothers in some uh
00:22:59in African region and probably net will be moving from Nigeria to other
00:23:02countries
00:23:03so we need to attract uh some health commodities
00:23:07also manufacturing of some of this product and the president has given waver
00:23:11in many of this if you want to establish any health uh uh
00:23:15manufacturing manufacturing yeah you are free to come and then you have
00:23:19incentives. Yeah, so we are calling on everybody that wants to
00:23:23invest into health, this is a window now that you can put in money, and of
00:23:26course with our population, you know that whatever you put you
00:23:30reap out of it. As we wrap up, you brought up
00:23:34something that had to do with priorities, if something isn't
00:23:38the priority of a state governor, if health is not his
00:23:42priority, you are wasting your time, yeah, if his
00:23:46priority, and and that's the thing about health, about investing in the...
00:23:50sector is that it's not, it's not immediate money, it's something that builds over
00:23:54time, so for for many state governments, what we see is that they cuts the they cut
00:23:58ribbon, medical center, they cut ribbon, but it's not working, yeah, but you
00:24:01see the problem is that the health you have to look at it
00:24:05because it is most time the health in this indicators are not
00:24:09tangible for example and then they are
00:24:13not easily used for campaigns, yes you can't use it for campaigns, for for example if a
00:24:17state governor goes now oh i said okay this intervention
00:24:21i brought and it has reduced materal mortality from this to this
00:24:24how do you campaign with so
00:24:26for villager he wants to see that okay
00:24:29uh uh you have build primary health center you have build
00:24:33general hospital you have build these and that apart from
00:24:36that how have you empower human
00:24:40resource for health most time people don't see that that's
00:24:44spending on health if if people are healthy they don't even think about
00:24:48that okay something made me healthy, mean it is when they are sick, they now
00:24:52begin to run out, as we're wrapping up, i was thinking, is it possible that your committee can
00:24:56help in some way uh, maybe come up with some kind of bill
00:25:00that that makes it mandatory for
00:25:03state governments to give a percentage their their
00:25:07income or percentage their budget, a particular percentage has
00:25:11to go to health, make it a priority, since they since many them don't want to take
00:25:15it as a priority, can you compel them negeria is signatory to the
00:25:19abuja declar? of 2021 that
00:25:2215% of our annual budgets will go to
00:25:26health, 15%, some state government are
00:25:29doing over 15%, i can assure you, but sometimes when it comes
00:25:33to budget spending, it's not just the the the the allocation
00:25:37of funds, maybe what about the is not just the
00:25:41budgeting of fund, which sector, where and where is the money
00:25:45going, so you have to prioritize also
00:25:49the spending, Secondly, we need to also look at
00:25:52releases, is one thing to budget uh
00:25:5515% of your annual budget on, and nothing to
00:25:59have the releases, so budget without release will. will make little
00:26:03impact number number two number three
00:26:07um
00:26:08the basic healthcare provision funds
00:26:09has in
00:26:14its own design states are supposed to have
00:26:16counterpart funding so with
00:26:20that the collaboration between the federal and and the
00:26:24subnational will bring about strengthening the
00:26:27system so by the time we begin to apply it to the
00:26:31letter there was said that I went and I actually called that,
00:26:34okay, let's suspend the releases from
00:26:38federal government to the states until we see
00:26:42the commitment the state, but then I look at it and when we
00:26:46when I discuss with the - ed
00:26:50of primary healthcare, I say if we do that some
00:26:53states, the poor in the community, because the
00:26:57this this hair care prohibition fund is their lifeline, yes, so if we
00:27:01decide to block. that this is the only thing they receive from the
00:27:04state, so we need to be deliberate, we need to be committed,
00:27:08we need to show duty of care to our our
00:27:12people, that's all the time that we have,
00:27:15i know it's never enough time, never, but do have to thank you so
00:27:19much, for being with us on dateline abuja, good luck
00:27:23with all the work, i know you have ahead of you, thank you,
00:27:26kyla, thank you for
00:27:28having
00:27:32me. Thanks to my guest, honorable Amos Magaji and
00:27:36everyone who spoke to us today on the program. The conversation
00:27:40about healthcare cannot end with policy announcements. For
00:27:44millions of Nigerians, the real test is whether they can walk into a hospital
00:27:47and receive timely, affordable and quality treatment.
00:27:51Please let us know the happenings in your neighborhood using the social media handles showing right
00:27:55now on your screens. Thank you so much for watching, I'm Kaylaamagwa.
00:27:59See you next time.
00:30:28Hello and welcome, I am your me.
00:30:33As the damaged expansion joints at the kara bridge section the
00:30:37Lagos Cibatan Expressway undergo repairs, eyewitness
00:30:41report highlights how the intervention has brought its own
00:30:44challenges with traffic build up and longer journeys
00:30:48for motorists and commuters during the first week
00:30:52of work. We also return to Quira state where the
00:30:56deteriorating condition the Enrique Road.