Recently updated on September 1st, 2018 at 10:37 pm
Eight (8) Nigerian states have been honored at the 3rd THISDAY Healthcare Policy Dialogue for the provision of basic health services to their people using the Saving One Million Lives Performance for Results (SOMLPforR) programme.
The 3rd THISDAY Healthcare Policy Dialogue held in Abuja focused on addressing issues around provision of healthcare to vulnerable Nigerians.
Under the programme, the Federal Government of Nigeria, in 2017 disbursed $1.5 million to each state of the federation to support them in the improvement of health outcomes in their states with key focus on: provision of quality healthcare in primary health facilities, vaccination coverage among children; contraceptive prevalence rate; skilled birth attendance; HIV counseling/testing among women attending antenatal care; and use of insecticide treated nets by under five children, among others.
States honored for distinguishing themselves are Zamfara (North-west), Adamawa (North-east), Federal Capital Territory (North-central) and Cross River (South-south), which were selected as best improved states with overall improvement in key maternal, newborn and child health indicators; Lagos and Anambra won as best performing states on immunisation; while Delta and Kano States emerged states with the most people covered under State Social Health Insurance Agency, with a focus on poor and vulnerable population covered mandatorily with public financing.
The SOMLPforR is a tool that helps Nigeria address the burden of healthcare, especially in rural and hard to reach areas of the country, where mostly, the poor and the vulnerable live.
Giving details of how the eight states emerged during his presentation at the 3rd THISDAY Healthcare Policy Dialogue, the National Programme Manager, SOMLPforR, Dr. Ibrahim Kana said the method of selection followed a painstaking process which then identified eight states in a comprehensive evaluation process carried out by the Federal Ministry of Health.
He said the performance rewards were calculated based on five Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs) under the SOMLPforR.
According to Dr. Ibrahim Kana:
“The first, DLI 1, which is the increasing utilisation (quantity) of high impact reproductive and child health and nutrition interventions, relies on results from SMART surveys (the 2015 SMART Survey is the baseline for this DLI under the SOMLPforR). This survey mainly looks for improvements in six key indicators of maternal & child health, which are; immunisation coverage, bed net use by children under five, vitamin A supplementation, family planning, HIV testing during pregnancy, and use of skilled birth attendance (SBA).
Results from the 2016 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) were compared against results from the 2015 SMART survey (baseline) in order to determine which states had improved on the above indicators.
Slightly more than half of the states improved on skilled birth attendance and insecticide-treated net (ITN) use, with mean increases in coverages at 1.5 and 3.2 percentage points respectively—this performance is less than ideal according to analysis by the assessors. In the 12 states that improved on overall composite indicator in 2016, most of the improvements came from ITN coverage, followed by prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), and then SBA.
On DLI 3, which is the improving M&E systems and data utilisation (and implementing a performance management system in all states, the Federal Ministry of Health committed to helping state Ministries of Health develop and operate performance management systems with the aim of strengthening accountability mechanisms and fostering evidence-based decision making in health.
Under the SOMLPforR, the implementation of a performance management system is meant to ensure that states remain laser focused on results by linking their actions/interventions directly with measurable outcomes in the shortest possible timeframe.
On the DLI 5, which is the Increasing Transparency in Management and Budgeting for PHC, the survey looked at transfer of staff at facility level to SPHCDA, and consolidated budget execution report produced and published annually.”
Dr. Ibrahim Kana said on DLI 4, which is the Increasing Utilisation and Quality of Reproductive and Child Health and Nutrition Interventions through Private Sector Innovation, the survey looked at how implementation of innovation fund that help address SOML challenges like small grants (up to $100,000) to test or develop new techniques, technologies; larger grants (up to $1 million) to test new approaches to improving the delivery of SOML services; and proposals judged ‘blindly’ by independent panel using explicit criteria.
