The Kwara Government has approved N13 million for its current medical outreach targeted at giving free healthcare and surgeries to poor and vulnerable people in the state.
Dr Raji Razaq, the state Commissioner for Health, disclosed this in a statement issued on Wednesday in Ilorin.
Razaq explained that the administration has fully provided for the outreach, including the required drugs.
“The Kwara State Ministry of Health is at the planning stage for her next round of community health outreach, which has been a feature of the Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq-led administration.
“This will be the seventh in the series of the highly-impactful intervention, aimed at providing services to indigent members of our community who needed specialist services but cannot afford the cost of care,” he said.
The commissioner said that the medical outreach committee sought to collaborate widely in the spirit of universal health coverage.
According to him, this is in response to several entreaties and requests for involvement from multiple stakeholders in the health sector as experienced during previous outreaches.
“It was in this light that the pharmacy unit of the Ministry of Health wished to integrate their parent body, Pharmaceuticals Society of Nigeria, into the community outreach scheme to ensure their mutual involvement and support to the community.”
Razaq added that the collaboration, partnership and community participation are key component of community interventions which are acceptable globally and inherent component of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG-17) of the United Nations.
He stated that the administration of Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has constantly released funds for all phases of the health interventions.
“Even so, we felt it is an opportunity to further open our doors to organisations that have shown willingness to partner with us like the PSN, Nigerian Medical Association, Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, Association of Medical laboratory scientists of Nigeria.
“And others that represent the full complements of our health workforce to come on board to offer what each of them has in stock, that way, as many indigents as may require such free services can benefit,” he said.
He explained that medical and surgical outreaches are organised as periodic interventional activities to deliver specific services to target population.
The commissioner also stated that the administration has put in place various social safety nets towards addressing challenges of the people, including the State-owned Insurance Agency that runs a wide range of people-oriented scheme which caters for people in the formal and informal sectors, and the indigents.
He assured that counterpart funds are being paid to sustain the state’s benefit package in the Basic Health Care Provision Fund through the Primary Health Care and Health insurance gateways.