The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Iziaq Salako, has charged health institutions to remain steadfast to President Bola Tinubu’s vision of ensuring qualitative healthcare for Nigerians.
Naijaonpoint reports that Salako stated this during familiarization visits to agencies and parastatals of the Ministry.
A statement from the Ministry’s deputy spokesman, Alaba Balogun, the Minister visited the Nigeria Institute for Pharmaceutical and Research Development (NIPRD) at Idu Industrial Layout and the Nigerian Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment (NICRAT) in Abuja.
Speaking with NIPRD Director General, Obi Adigwe and the management team, he charged them to consider business venture partnerships that would develop some of its products, with a possibility of assessing $1 billion from the Africa Export, Import (AFREXIM) Bank.
He promised the Ministry’s support in projecting the agency’s products on the table of physicians.
He added that NIPRD was a very important institution in the “President’s agenda of ensuring universal health coverage for Nigerians and, commitment to reversing the direction of medical tourism“.
Meanwhile, at NICRAT; the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare urged the institute’s Director-General, Usman Aliyu and his team to prioritize research around prevention and strengthen cancer awareness advocacy.
“We know that whether we prevent, people will still come under with the disease. So we must also be prepared to provide qualitative care for people with the disease. To catch them very early through screening services.
“This is a very important disease or diseases that we must, all of us, sit down to frontally address. Which means that our efforts, our strategy need to be optimally tailored towards prevention and control, towards increasing awareness, towards improving the health literacy of Nigerians. Because quite a number of these cancers are preventable,” he stated.
On the federal government’s initiative for the Cancer Health Fund, Salako explained that it was a fund set apart to assist and support people who need cancer care but could not afford it.
“It is currently operating in some centers and, it’s targeted at specific cancers, not all cancers.
“So this is an initiative to ensure that care is made available to vulnerable Nigerians who cannot afford it. We are hoping that during this budget cycle, we can expand the Cancer fund and make it more robust.
“And then, if there are more resources available, we can bring on board more centers and, more cancer types,” he stated.