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Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, the immediate past Governor of Ondo State, on Friday, said political will and public financing are key to the attainment of Universal Health Coverage in Nigeria and the developed world.
Speaking on Friday at the Maiden Scientific Conference of the Association of Feto-Maternal Specialists of Nigeria (AFEMSON), held at the Medical Research Centre Hall of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Mimiko said political leadership muster and develop the needed political will and deplore public fund towards Universal Health Coverage.
Drawing copious references from data and reports of global and national agencies on the Gains and Challenges of Universal Health Coverage, Mimiko said that players and policy makers have all agreed that “Universal Health Coverage delivers substantial health, economic and political benefits across populations,” which means that “public finance must be deplored to the pursuit of coverage” in other to reap associated health, economic and political benefits.
Mimiko, who referred to different scalable interventions and developments of his administration as governor of Ondo State, women, children and adolescents must be given priority in universal health coverage as they are the most vulnerable of the population.
He added that the attainment of the Health target of the Sustainable Developments Goals “is inextricably tied to universal health coverage.”
Mimiko traced his exploits as Governor in the health sector to his conviction that maternal and perinatal deaths could in most cases be prevented if the society paid premium attention to delivering affordable health care.
The former Governor in the keynote said he, “working with other stakeholders, put in place processes that have
to a large extent proved that even in resources challenged settings like ours we can post reasonable outcomes in maternal and perinatal death reduction,” adding that as posited in Centre for Strategic and International Studies’
(CSIS), report on the first year of his government’s ABIYE, Safe Motherhood initiative, progress in universal care is possible with right leadership.