The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, yesterday said the Federal Government will soon create seven trauma centres nationwide to cater for emergencies.
He also said the government will revitalize about 10,000 primary health care centres to reduce pressure on teaching hospitals.
Adewole, who spoke with some select newsmen in Abuja, said the nation will soon have a trauma policy.
He said: “The issue of trauma centre is not complex, but it is also not simple. We want to ensure that each of our hospitals has a trauma centre no matter how small.
“As part of evolution of what you can call an upgrade in the system, we are now creating specialized trauma centres and it is not peculiar to Nigeria. Already, there is one at the National Hospital in Abuja and another in Gwagwalada.
“I actually invited seven Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) to my ministry and I said that I am looking for money to upgrade seven teaching hospitals, at least one in each geopolitical zone. I picked Maiduguri in the North-East, ABUTH in the North-West, National Hospital, UNTH in the South-East , UBTH, UCH Ibadan and UITH Ilorin and I said in 2017, I will start with them.
“I asked each of the Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) to identify two major priorities. The UMTH, Maiduguri CMD picked a trauma centre and I think the next one will be a cancer centre.
“The trauma centre in Maiduguri will cost about N2.5 billion. When you add that to the cost of setting up a cancer centre, each of the teaching hospitals might need about N5 billion. So, if we want to create seven trauma centres, we might need about N35 billion plus or minus. We have 12, but we said we should start with seven.
“We are also working on a trauma policy; the ministry is going to have an emergency policy. What do we do for emergency; it will soon become a public matter.”
The minister also said the government will revitalize about 10,000 primary health care centres in the country.
He added: “During the campaign, the All Progressives Congress (APC) made promises. The party said it would offer health care within five kilometres; the healthcare will be affordable, accessible, and it will be of good quality.
“To me as a technocrat, those who wrote the manifesto then were thinking of the Universal Health Coverage and we decided that we will attain the Universal Health Coverage. But how can we achieve Universal Health Coverage? We said the only way to attain it is by implementing the policy of revitalizing the primary health care because that is the base.
“About 70 per cent of Nigerians can receive care at primary level, 20 per cent will go to secondary and 10 per cent will need to go to teaching or tertiary hospitals. But what we have been having is a situation where people will go to teaching hospitals because they have lost confidence in the primary centres because they are no longer working.
“There are 30,000 primary health care centres in the country and only 20 per cent are working. If we can make 10,000 of these 30,000 PHC centres to work, we would have brought health care to many. That was how we came about the concept of revitalizing 10,000 of the 30,000.”
Credit: thenationonlineng.net