Fifteen states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have so far benefitted from the N51 billion Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has disclosed.
Executive director of NPHCDA, Faisal Shuaib, in December 2018 said the Agency was coordinating the disbursement of the BHCPF, which was rolled out by President Muhammadu Buhari in the same month.
Head of the public relations unit, NPHCDA, Mohammed Ohitoto, on Wednesday explained that 5 percent of the BHCPF was being retained by the Federal Ministry of Health as emergency treatment gate, while 50 percent goes to the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
He added that the NPHCDA is entitled to 45 percent as a gateway to the states, in respect of Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities management.
Ohitoto revealed that N5.8 billion had so far been released to NPHCDA from the fund, which has subsequently been disbursed to the 15 States that met the criteria to access the fund.
He listed the beneficiary states to include: Abia, Osun, Kaduna, Kano, Delta, Anambra, Edo, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Benue, Adamawa, Kwara, Plateau, Bayelsa, and the FCT.
Ohitoto noted that the disbursement to seven states that have opened their Treasury Single Account (TSA), which is a criterion to access the fund, was being processed. He said funding would be made available to additional number of states as soon as their TSA were opened and other conditions met.
The spokesperson further explained that the BHCPF was shared proportionately among the States, based on targeted population derived from National Bureau of Statistics projected population.
According to Ohitoto, the larger part of the funds is to be used to support Decentralized Facility Financing (DFF) in areas such as logistics, infrastructure and operational cost –transportation, hiring of ad-hoc Staff, purchase of seed drugs e.tc, while some of the funds would also be used by the states to improve the availability of midwives and for the establishment and payment of allowances to Community Health Influencers, Promoters and Services (CHIPS) programme agents.
Ohitoto informed further that the 18 states, which were yet to access the funds, were at various stages of compliance with the conditions that must be met.
According to him, the requirements to be fulfilled, which were instituted by the Primary Health Care under One Roof (PHCUOR) include: the existence of functioning Local Government Health Authorities (LGHA), an established State Primary Health Care Board (SPHCB), baseline assessment of primary health care (PHC) facilities, an instituted state Steering committee and the TSA with N100 million opened.
Others are signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the NPHCDA, notification of planning Research and Statistics (PRS) department, confirmation of participating PHCs, selection of Facilities and accreditation of pharmacies among others.
Meanwhile, he disclosed that over 589 additional health facilities had been completed and an additional 119 new Health Facilities awarded under the 2018 appropriation with a 76 percent completion rate.
