Invest in healthcare, improve life expectancy – Obi urges FG

 

The Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, Mr Peter Obi, has called for more investment in healthcare to prevent disease outbreaks and improve life expectancy.

Obi made the call at the sixth public lecture of the Board of Fellows, Pharmaceuticals Society of Nigeria (PSN) at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), on Wednesday in Awka.

The lecture’s theme is “Access to Quality Medicines in an Opinion unstable Environment”.

The former governor of Anambra noted that catering for the health of the citizens should be one of the government’s major priorities to drive desired development.

“The most critical measure and driver of development in any country is improved life expectancy, which is health. That is the number one thing because your health is wealth.

“It is only when people are healthy that they can become productive.

“According to the measurement of life expectancy, Nigeria is number 157 out of 190 countries measured. That means we are low, and this is because access to health is low.

“Under the sustainable development goals, health is a fundamental human right.

“This means that every human being must have access to healthcare known as health equity.

“But the reverse is the case in Nigeria,” Obi said.

He decried the rising cost of essential drugs in the country. He, therefore, urged the federal government to partner with local pharmaceutical industries to manufacture high-quality drugs.

Obi said many Nigerians had resorted to prayers whenever they fell sick to secure a spiritual cure rather than go to the hospital.

“Our government need to increase budgetary allocation to health and invest more in healthcare. When we do that, outbreaks such as cholera will not emerge.

Also speaking, Dr Afam Obidike, the State Commissioner for Health said Gov. Chukwuma Soludo’s administration acquired 5000 hectares of land to build Pharmaceutical Industrial City.

Obidike said the idea of the pharmaceutical industrial city was to change the concept of importation.

“It will be the biggest pharmaceutical distributors’ hub in West Africa.

This shows Gov. Soludo’s interest in the people’s health,” he said.

Earlier, Dr Joel Adagadzu, Chairman of the Board of PSN Fellows, said recommendations from the lecture would help the leadership of PSN in dialogueing with the government.

Such dialogues, he said, would help in finding address access to quality medicines for the teeming population.

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