Follow Us on Google
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), has lamented that the attitude of Nigerians in seeking health care services at the Primary Health Care (PHC) Centres is still unimpressive and has remained sub-optimal over the years.
The Agency, however, highlighted that social, cultural and geographical barriers, poor quality of care, and low level of trust in the health system arising from misinformation and disinformation, among several others, are some of the reasons for unimpressive access to PHCs.
It also added that the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 worsened the situation by bringing about social restrictions and heightening public distrust in the health systems, hence it impacted negatively on people’s health seeking behaviours, and further weight down on demand for services especially at primary health care and community levels in the country.
Executive Secretary, NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, who spoke at a programme in Abuja, on strengthening demand for PHC services in Nigeria, however, confirmed that measures are beginning to be adopted to correct the wrong impressions and boost people’s confidence in PHC services.
Dr. Shuaib who was represented by Adamu Usman, said, “as we strove through COVID-19 to recover demand for services using our existing structures and strategies, we were also working closely with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) on how to explore behavioural science approaches and human-centred designs for a more evidence-based interventions that would lead to long term desired changes in health seeking behaviours.
“The implementation of this first stage of the project, which included funding for two years to cover start-up support in two states, Niger and Gombe, commenced in 2021. This is a little over two years since then, and the role of BUSARA Centre for behavioural economics as the implementing consortium is exemplary.”
He also commended other members of the consortium, notably, CCSI, Solina, NTLC, and NPHCDA for the good job done on the project, expressing hope that, based on the mutually agreed milestones, the team made sufficient progress on stage one of the project, and should therefore consider taking immediate steps to develop the scale up plan.”
In his remarks, the Country Director, BMGF, Dr. Jeremie Zoungrana, said: “The Gates Foundation has one overarching goal, and that is to create a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy and productive life irrespective of social and financial status.
“We learned about the behaviors and beliefs that influence some of the barriers and issues preventing people from accessing health care services and the COVID-19 vaccines such as cultural, religious and social norms, misinformation, disinformation, and just widespread hesitancy, efforts are being made to effect necessary corrections.
Director, BUSARA, Francis Meyo, in his remarks, said the project succeeded in improving the approaches and behavioral attitudes of health workers as well as health care seekers.
