Nigeria’s President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has approved the establishment of the National Health Fellows Programme with young fellows to be engaged in all the 774 local government areas in the country.
Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, stated in a statement on Monday that the fellowship’s major goal is to improve service delivery at 8,800 primary healthcare facilities nationwide, including those that are already in place.
Tinubu, in December 2023, while unveiling Nigeria’s Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative and the signing of the Health Renewal Compact by Federal, State Governments, and Development Partners, had announced that his administration would be prioritising and improving the healthcare sector through massive investment.
Speaking at the event organised to coincide with the commemoration of last year’s Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day, President Tinubu noted the importance of primary healthcare in building a resilient, integrated healthcare system and announced plans for a comprehensive revamp of physical infrastructure, equipment, and the re-training of frontline health workers starting from 2024.
However, announcing the new fellowship in the statement, Ngelale said those to be engaged as fellows would be tasked with the responsibility of monitoring and tracking primary healthcare centres’ development and performance, which would be measured against the financial inflows into the centres across the country.
“In his determination to comprehensively upgrade existing primary healthcare centres and construct over 8,800 new primary healthcare centres across all local government areas in the country for accessible and qualitative healthcare delivery with the provision of new social accountability mechanisms, President Bola Tinubu has approved the establishment of the National Health Fellows Programme, with young Nigerian fellows to be engaged in all the 774 local government areas in the country.
“The well-trained fellows will serve as fiduciary agents to monitor and track Primary Healthcare Centre development and performance, which is to be assiduously measured against all financial inflows to the centres nationwide.
“The fellowship programme will be domiciled in the Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) coordination office under the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. The fellows will be recruited, renumerated, and equipped with appropriate tools to track the performance of Basic Health Care Provision Fund-supported health facilities across the nation.
“President Tinubu, who is the African Union Champion for Human Resources in Healthcare, places faith in young Nigerians, and expects that their engagement in this critical nation-building task, which also includes a daily monitoring and tracking of health reforms in their locations, will usher in a new era of world-class service provision to all Nigerians in every part of the country,” the statement reads.
