Gombe State Accountability Mechanism for Maternal and Newborn and Child Health (GoSAM) has urged the state government to increase budget of Health sector from 8.5 to 15 percent based on the Abuja declaration in April 2001.
 
Hajiya Zariyatu Abubakar chairperson advocacy subcommittee GoSAM made the called in Gombe on Thursday when the group paid an advocacy visit to the state Ministry for Economic Planning.
 

Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, has decried the inadequate attention the government is paying to health and the overdependence on foreign donors to fund health initiatives in the country.
 
Mr. Adewole, who spoke at the Maiden Edition of Health Communication Conference organised by Association of Nigeria Health Journalists, ANHEJ in Abuja on Thursday, said despite the improvement in budgetary allocation to the sector this year, it was still a far cry from global standards.
 

Olabisi Loto, a professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU) Ile-Ife, has asked the federal government to expand the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
 
Speaking while delivering the 305 inaugural lecture of the university, entitled: ‘Give Me Children…Let Me Live: Combating the Misery of Infertility and Preventing Maternal Mortality’, Loto said there is need to cover more of the populace and provide more “therapeutic interventions to reduce the crippling out of pocket expenditure by patients”.
 

Dr Hadiza Balarabe, Executive Secretary, Kaduna State Primary Healthcare Development Agency has assured women in the state of a “truly free access” to child spacing services with effect from July.
 
Balarabe gave the assurance in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Zaria, Kaduna State on Monday.
 
She spoke on the sideline of a three-day workshop on costed implementation plan for child spacing organised by Palladium and Pathfinder International to promote child spacing in the state.