The Federal Government has earmarked seventy hospitals across the country including 21 Federal Teaching Hospitals, 31 Federal Medical Centres, Four Specialist Hospitals and 14 Fistula and Cleft lip/palate Centres, for a special health intervention project aimed at tackling critical challenges in the health sector.
The Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, while addressing newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday, said the ministry commenced the project after consultations with stakeholders on the need to scale up and smoothen operations in healthcare facilities across the country.
Prof. Adewole further disclosed that the main purpose of the project is to strengthen and reposition tertiary health institutions for better performance, to make the facilities self-sustainable and attractive to large number of patients they cater for, to strengthen their research capabilities.
The project is also to reduce medical tourism arising from obsolete equipment and infrastructure and to facilitate the attainment of universal Health coverage (UHC) in Nigeria.
He also said the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) designed the Tertiary health Institution Intervention project as a means to address some of the critical challenges facing the health sector as enshrined in the Act establishing the scheme.
