Dr. Musa Aliyu, SAN, the Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) says the commission is poised to address corruption and corrupt practices in the health sector.
Aliyu said this on Thursday in Abuja, at a one-day conference on Engendering Corruption-Free Primary Healthcare Delivery in Nigeria, organised by the ICPC.
The conference is with the theme: “corruption free health care delivery for all”.
The chairman said that the commission was putting in place measures to ensure corruption-free primary healthcare delivery in the country.
He said that the commission had put in place the conference, which was part of the efforts being made to enlist and foster public support in combating corruption in the nation.
According to him, the conference is specifically organised to stimulate discussions that will help improve service delivery devoid of windows for corrupt tendencies in the Health Sector.
“This has become necessary considering the sector’s critical nature and its role in ensuring a healthy society at all levels.
“The Commission’s choice of Primary Health Care in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as the pilot for the nationwide conversation is to create a comprehensive template that can be replicated in all the six-geopolitical zones of the federation.
“Participants were carefully drawn from community healthcare stakeholders to have a holistic and collaborative approach to improving the effectiveness of primary healthcare service delivery,” he said.
He said that the conference targeted entrenching professionalism, ethics, integrity, and other anti-corruption values to engineering a more effective and corruption-free primary healthcare delivery, leveraging the commission’s preventive mandates and strategies.
“Additionally, the conference targets anti-corruption awareness on how to ensure transparency and accountability in the healthcare delivery system, including diminishing tendencies for corrupt practices on both the side of healthcare providers and persons using healthcare facilities,” he said
Rep. Kayode Akiolu, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Anti-Corruption, in his goodwill message pledged the National Assembly’s support to fight corruption in the country.
Akiolu said that the House of Representatives would use the legislative instruments at its disposal to aid the fight against corruption, especially in the health sector.
“The Nigerian health sector is in the middle of a crisis.
“From doctors and other medical professionals leaving the country in droves, to insufficiency of medical equipment, poor working conditions and endemic corruption, the challenges are legion.
“There is thus the need to tackle these issues, and one of the most critical is corruption in the primary healthcare subsector.
“I feel confident that if corruption is reined in that subsector, the impact will be felt in the health sector as a whole in terms of improved working conditions for medical professionals, better service delivery and improvement in the health of citizens.
“These, in turn, will slow down the ‘Japa’ syndrome and medical tourism which will greatly benefit the nation’s economy.”
Dr Adedolapo Fasawe, the Mandate Secretary, Health Services And Environment, FCTA, in a keynote address noted with concern that corruption had hampered and continued to bedevil the Primary Health Care (PHC) service delivery in Nigeria.
“The opportunity cost of financial corruption in health is inestimable. What is the cost of a life? Therefore, in health, corruption must either be prevented or nipped in the bud at infancy.
“A cancerous like corruption is worse than a pandemic – procurement of substandard equipment, fake drugs, revenue leakages, and inflated health bills are some of the immediate results of corruption,” she said.
While calling for a holistic approach in tackling the menace across the country, she called for the adoption of a public health approach to making the PHC system corruption-free.
According to her, rather than detecting the corruption after it has been committed, audit and petition style, it must be prevented.
“And, if it occurs, it must be detected as `Outbreak Control’ as soon as possible through the use of sensitive tools and surveillance.”
She expressed concern that corruption thrived in weak systems with non-strategic and comprehensive processes.
She, therefore, identified blocks of the health system that must be strengthened to achieve a health service delivery system that would serve the people as envisaged and planned.
“The Governance and Leadership building block is very key to engendering the corruption-free Primary Health Care delivery for all.
“Honest and competent leadership at key positions in the PHC and Health system will clean the Augean stable. This can only be achieved if competent, transparent and proven professionals are in place to manage the PHC system.
“Therefore, policies and laws must be in place to ensure that filling of these managerial positions are merit based, and continued occupation of these offices is based on performance.”
Dr Muyi Aina, Executive Director the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), in a goodwill message, said that PHC was a people-centered and whole-of-society approach to health care delivery.
Aina was represented by Dr Oritseweyimi Ogbe, Director Special Duties NPHCDA
“It is therefore the great pillar that holds a nation’s health system and the platform to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Consequently, the dysfunctional effect of corruption in the health sector is often most devastating at the PHC level.
“These acts are often in the form of bribes to provide services, extortion, patient discrimination or outright misuse of funds meant for health care delivery among other vices.
“The cumulative effects of these corrupt practices include distrust of government by individuals and communities.
“Others are poor uptake of services infrastructural decay, and a vicious cycle of impoverishment of the most vulnerable members of the society, with the resultant poor health outcomes,” he said.
