Stakeholders in Nigeria’s healthcare sector have called for increased investment in family planning services and improved childcare, to offer better health systems for women, children and families.
The call was made during the Health Systems Consult Limited’s (HSCL) end-of-project dissemination event on strategic planning for family planning, maternal, child and new-born health (SP4FP/MNCH) in Lagos State.
The event, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, brought together public health professionals who emphasised the importance of tackling challenges and implementing strategies to improve access to health services.
Dr. Nkata Chuku, Founding Partner of HSCL, highlighted the benefits of investing in family planning and maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) services.
“There is a clear evidence that when you invest in family planning and MNCH, not only do you save lives, but it actually reduces the cost of providing care eventually because unwanted pregnancies alone cost more than integrating family planning into your plans,” he said.
The project’s implementation partners reported significant milestones, including a 14% increase in the uptake of family planning services, a 4% overall increase in MNCH service utilisation, and a notable reduction in out-of-pocket spending by Lagos State residents.
Rodio Diallo, Senior Program Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, emphasised the importance of family planning in enforcing health outcomes.
“The project support led to the rebranding of the Lagos State insurance scheme to Ilera Eko and a substantial rise in enrolment from less than 1000 when the project started to 950,000 in the formal and informal sectors,” she said.
Dr. Kelechi Ohiri, Director General and CEO of the National Health Insurance Agency (NHIA), stressed the agency’s mandate of ensuring that most Nigerians have health insurance coverage to protect them from the catastrophic cost of healthcare.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, underscored the project’s success and highlighted recommendations for further improving access to family planning, MNCH services and achieving universal health coverage. The integration of family planning and MNCH services into the state health insurance package is deemed a pivotal strategy.
“What this project has done to help us as a government, ministry of health, and within the agency of the Lagos State health management sector, is that it has identified pathways through which we can gather the data that is necessary, apply modern science and actuarial studies to determine how this data can help to develop our reproductive population’s access to child spacing because for us it is not about quality but quantity,” Prof. Abayomi said.
The event reinforced the recognition that the health and well-being of women and girls in Nigeria are integral to the nation’s progress. The call to invest in women resonates as a key strategy to harness their full potential, with family planning investments emerging as a pillar for achieving this transformative goal.
