Nigeria’s Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) Dr. Faisal Shuaib says that no fewer than 3,000 women and children below the age of five die daily in Nigeria due to lack of access to healthcare, a local website The Nation reports.
Shuaib said this on Friday in Lafia, Nasarawa State, when the state government signed an agreement with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for a $ 500,000 grant to strengthen the primary health care (PHC) system in the state.
He appealed to the three tiers of government and all stakeholders to take necessary steps that would always make it possible for the poor and the vulnerable in rural communities across the country to have access to health care services.
Shuaib lauded the Nasarawa State Government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the partnership, saying it would make a huge difference in health care delivery to the people in the state.
“As we begin to increase the number of functional health facilities and provide access to basic care for our people, we will gradually be stopping our women and children from dying needless deaths,” Shuaib said.
Majority of the deaths were being recorded in the northern part of the country.
