Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, yesterday claimed that the state is faced with a deficit of roughly 40,000 doctors and another 40,000 nurses. He also added that the state’s health sector needs at least N100 billion over the present budgeted allotment to fulfil the demands of its expanding population.
The governor also revealed that more than 1.5 million people had subscribed to the state’s health insurance scheme, Ilera Eko, as the government intensifies efforts to develop a sustainable health care system.
Sanwo-Olu said this while opening the second Eko Health Convention at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, The PUNCH reported.
The governor said the two largest difficulties facing the state’s healthcare system were shortage of health staff and funding warning that donor support for disease control was dwindling.
“Lagos needs about 40,000 doctors to take care of this population well. We have some 7,000. We need about 40,000 more nurses. “Almost every doctor in Lagos today is doing the work of 10,” he remarked.
“The second gap is money,” he remarked. We are short of at least N100bn between what we spend on health and what this system really demands.
“Donor financing that funded much of our disease control for two decades is contracting sharply and won’t return in its old form.”
The governor stated the state has begun to tackle the personnel gap thru aggressive recruitment, better welfare packages and plans to build a University of Medicine and Health Sciences, despite the hurdles.
“We’ve been aggressive in our recruitment, last month opening clinical recruitment in all twenty-nine of our secondary facilities.
“We have constructed accommodation for health workers. “We are making things better to slow departures and increasingly to bring colleagues back,” he said.
On health insurance, Sanwo-Olu said the state’s compulsory social health insurance policy has continued to extend coverage since the domestication of the National Health Insurance Authority Act.
“Today, Ilera Eko has more than one and a half million Lagosians registered in it.
The amount stood at 1,502,994 at the end of May this year. More over half are female.
“And utilisation is going up, which tells us something important: that coverage is translating into actual care and not just into cards in wallets,” he said.
According to the governor, the Lagos State Health Management Agency’s Assistance in Distress program had saved 18 lives since it began operations in March.
“Since it went live in March, that program has saved 18 lives… Road traffic injuries, surgical emergencies, obstetric emergencies, stroke. “There are eighteen people alive today because the system didn’t pause long enough to ask them if they could afford to be,” he added.
Sanwo-Olu also added that the government was utilising technology to improve healthcare delivery thru the Lagos Smart Health Information Platform being adopted across public health institutions.
“The platform will enable patients to access their medical records easily across healthcare facilities, enhance disease surveillance and facilitate evidence-based planning,” he said.
The government was also spending money on artificial intelligence and digital innovation to improve diagnostics, medical imaging and delivery of health services, he said.
The governor re-affirmed his administration’s commitment to develop institutions and not projects saying that reforms such as Ilera Eko, the health districts and the digital health platform must outlive his tenure.
“We have given what we promised. Now we are designing the systems to sustain them far after us,” he said.
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