Here is how Anambra ended up leading other Nigerian states in primary healthcare development

Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s commitment to improve primary healthcare in Anambra State has culminated in the significant and positive impact seen on the lives of residents of Anambra, particularly women, children, nursing mothers and the people who were hitherto regarded to live in hard-to-reach and underserved areas.

This commitment to Anambra’s healthcare ecosystem has not gone unnoticed. Last Thursday, at the gala night held in the State House Conference Centre in Abuja,  Anambra State emerged the overall winner of the 2024  Primary Healthcare (PHC) Leadership Challenge, securing $1.2 million in prize money:  the state was  awarded $700,000 for best overall performance in Nigeria and an additional $500,000 for being the best-performing state in the south east.

The PHC Leadership Challenge award was launched in 2022 by the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) as a commitment to strengthening and improving the PHC ecosystem across the country and to appraise state performance. The first award edition kicked off in 2023 with Borno State – a state led by another progressive governor – emerging the best-performing state in primary healthcare delivery and taking home a price money of $1.2 million. This Leadership Challenge is also supported by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), UNICEF, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF). The PHC Leadership Challenge aims at enhancing state governors’ commitment to ‘’human capital development and to Primary Health Care, mobilize State resources, promote accountability, and foster innovation for gender-specific health outcomes’’.

This award is a testament of the aggressive drive by the Soludo-led administration to improve the leadership oversight, management and the delivery of essential health services at the community level in Anambra. Anambra has followed a well-thought-out strategy to get healthcare to the doorsteps of its residence, irrespective of economic status.

The Governor Soludo-led administration is perfecting its plans to have at least one world-class primary healthcare facility in all the 326 electoral wards in Anambra State.  These primary healthcare centers are effectively linked to general hospitals – i.e. referral hospitals – around the state. Today, the Soludo-led administration has been able to position Anambra as one of the few states in Nigeria that has well-equipped general hospitals in all its local government areas – i.e. the 21 local government areas. To achieve this, Governor Soludo built 5 new general hospitals – in Okpoko, Fegge, Oroma Etiti, Anaku and Enugwu-Otu – in the last 2 years and refurbished others that were in deplorable conditions. While some of these new general hospitals are currently being equipped, the revamped general hospitals are now effectively handling referred cases from all their surrounding primary healthcare facilities.

The administration knows that quality healthcare workers are the most important asset hospitals have. In the last 2 years, the Governor Soludo-led administration has recruited 500 healthcare workers to man – or rather to fill in the manpower gaps – in the various healthcare facilities being revamped in the state. This is coming in an era where some state governments have almost halted new employments. The administration hopes to increase the number of these healthcare recruits in future. Hospitals without doctors now have doctors.

Technology is being deployed to enhance patients’ experience in Anambra’s primary healthcare facilities. Patients also get the services of well-trained doctors through telemedicine. Anambra has functional telemedicine facilities installed in all its primary healthcare centers.  In Anambra, patients get the best care in public healthcare centers. The vision is to make significant impact in Nigeria’s primary healthcare ecosystem which has not lived up to the vision of Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, who as minister of health adopted the PHC model in local government areas in Nigeria in 1988.

With the use of renewable energy technologies, Anambra has set-up systems that would reduce the cost of running its public hospitals. Governor Soludo knows that for these hospitals that he is building and equipping with energy-intensive equipment to be sustainable, the cost of energy has to come down. Today, hospitals in Anambra are powered with solar inverters and some in the urban centers are being connected with fibre optic infrastructure.

Governor Soludo has been able to sustain the state’s free healthcare, antenatal and post-natal services as a result of his prudent management of resources. As a result of this, pregnant women do not pay a dime in public healthcare centers in Anambra and maternal mortality rate is almost zero in Anambra.

The Anambra Health Insurance Scheme is one of the fastest growing schemes in the country. The agency handling this scheme, which is led by Dr. Simeon Onyemaechi, has launched a strategic initiative aimed at ensuring that 90% of the state’s population benefits from health insurance coverage by 2030. This aligns with the global goals of universal health coverage. Currently, Dr Onyemaechi says the agency has an enrollment figure of 223,916 individuals. Health insurance schemes are the way to go because out of pocket payment for healthcare services could even drive a middle-income earner into poverty.

Yesterday, the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, lamented that many Nigerians still die of treatable diseases due to poverty and lack of access to quality healthcare services. This is what Governor Soludo intends to end in Anambra State.

The future of Anambra is bright with Governor Soludo at the helm of affairs.

Nwankwo is the special adviser on special projects to Soludo