SPEECH OF THE HON. MINISTER OF STATE FOR HEALTH DR ALIYU IDI HONG AT THE 52ND NATIONAL COUNCIL ON HEALTH: APRIL, 2009 AT THE AFFICENT, KANO, KANO STA

SPEECH OF THE HON. MINISTER OF STATE FOR HEALTH, DR ALIYU IDI HONG AT THE 52ND NATIONAL COUNCIL ON HEALTH:
APRIL, 2009 AT THE AFFICENT, KANO, KANO STATE.

P R O T O C O L

I am delighted to welcome you all to this 52nd National Council on Health which is the first my-self and my colleague, Hon Minister of Health Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, OON will be participating in as Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This meeting is coming at a most auspicious time in our national and political life. The theme of this meeting; Meeting the Challenges of the Health MDGs in Nigeria is also most appropriate. This is because Health is at the heart of the Millennium Development Goals. And meeting the challenges of the Health MDGs is at the heart of meeting the challenges of MDGs globally.
2. The timing is auspicious for two important reasons namely: the World-wide economic crises and financial meltdown which means that our march towards the accelerated achievement of the Health MDGs is taking place at a time of great challenges; when financial resources are not only in crises and in decline but also not guaranteed. The depth and extent of this financial crises cannot be underestimated and has necessitated the just concluded G-20 Heads of Government Summit in London in which the heads of Government of the twenty leading economies of the world came together to discuss ways of stemming the world economic recession and bringing the economy of the world back on track. The rancour, outrage and outcome of that meeting including the attendant protests which sometimes turned violent show just how deep the crises run and how passionate people feel about its effect on their daily living. The name-calling, disharmony, confusion and discord again underscored that no-one has the answers and that it is not yet uhuru. These are facts that will have a lot of impact on financing of health MDGs world-wide as it also comes with added political challenges for the heads of Government at home on just how much they can commit to Overseas Development Assistant (ODA) and will also affect the attention and commitment towards the MDGs in developing countries such as ours. We must therefore necessarily re-focus, re-strategise and re-tool in order to rise to these new and emerging challenges in our already challenged circumstance. For this reason alone, this meeting is very critical.

3. In addition, the timing is also most auspicious due to the spate of epidemics and avoidable public health challenges we have been faced with in the recent past. An illustration can easily be done with the issue of CSM which remain with us and seem to continuously overwhelm our system despite the fact that this is not only preventable, it is also predictable. Issues such as this continue to underscore a greater challenge of our Health System. It is this greater challenge of the system that the present leadership in the Federal Ministry of Health is most mindful of and determined to tackle more strategically than have been done before. We want to institutionalize anticipation, prevention, response and not reaction. This is part of what has informed our decision to use the opportunity of this our first NCH to look at the challenges of the MDGs in order to meet it. It is our hope and prayer that by the special grace of God, this NCH is therefore a great opportunity and a timely decision that can only and will serve us well.
4. Achieving the MDGs is one of the critical elements that the President’s seven-point agenda mandates us to ensure. And as we are all already aware of, out of the eight goals of the MDGs, three (Goals 4, 5 and 6) are health specific and all the other five goals are health-related. Health is therefore at the heart of the MDGs and since the MDGs are critical to the seven point agenda, it therefore means that Health is not only at the Heart of the MDGs but Health MDGs are critical to the seven point agenda of the President. So without health, the MDGs can never be achieved and without Health MDGs, the President’s seven point agenda cannot be realised. This is again another important reason we have adopted this theme for our first ever National Council on Health.

5. Health MDGs and human capital development are inter-linked like the case of the egg and the chicken; it is difficult to say exactly which one comes first but we do know that without good health, every effort at human capital development will be a colossal failure. The ability to be economically productive will be impinged upon; children will not go to school and when they do go, will not get the maximum benefit of the education due to ill health. All these will result in illiteracy, poverty and hunger. One so affected cannot pursue any education or acquire skills for employment resulting again in ill-health and under-development. So ill-health, poverty and illiteracy form a vicious cycle which results in underdevelopment. The Health MDGs if achieved will address these issues thus resulting in human capital development. The direct inverse relationship between the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), Under-5 Mortality Rate (U5MR) and Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) to the education and economic status of the mother is also noted here.

6. We are also mindful not to be the enfant-terrible of health-MDG worldwide as we may have inadvertently become in the case of Polio. Mindful of our size and population and our contribution to the worldwide IMR and MMR, we know again that without Nigeria, the MDGs cannot be achieved worldwide. We must therefore ensure that ours is not the generation that sets the world back in its march to achieve the Health MDGs worldwide. So we must seize the call of history to achieve the health MDGs in Nigeria at a time like this. Nigerians also are tired of excuses; they want action, action that can be measured in improved health outcomes for the generality of the populace.

7. We however cannot achieve the Health MDGs without forging and sustaining critical partnerships and alliances and that is why this gathering must be further strengthened. We are very grateful for your presence here today and also your ever prompt response each time we call on you. We will be calling on you as often as is necessary and I wish to use this opportunity on behalf of my colleague and myself to say thanks and to appeal to you to bear with us.

8. There have been challenges most of which remain. But we must not be daunted; instead we must see these as critical opportunities presented to us by God to be leaders in the generation that will make a difference and we do have no choice but to succeed. Failure is not an option at all. We recognise that the journey is far and the times are very difficult but we are committed, we are enthusiastic, and we are lucky we also have the appropriate political environment.

9. I have been careful not to go into specifics because my colleague, the Hon Minister, Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin will give the details of what we have agreed to do in order to arrive at our destination. I however must reiterate that we feel a high sense of duty and responsibility as the Ministers of Health to improve the quality of health services provided by our Health systems, improve the efficiency of service delivery, and to ensure equitable access to health care services and we are committeds toward building a responsible, responsive, reliable, result-oriented, and evidence-based health system in our march towards achieving the MDGs.

10. I do hope that we have been able to underscore the importance of actions required, and the urgency that is necessary to tackle the issues militating against our march towards the achievement of the Health MDGs and also respond to Mr. President’s marching orders to pull the health sector out of the woods. We really therefore do not have any time to loose, hence the theme and the urgency with which we are tackling these issues.

11. Your Excellency, the Governor of Kano State, Hon. Commissioners of Health, Permanent Secretaries, Directors, Development partners (Local and International), distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen of the Press, Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you all for your attention and I look forward to fruitful Council deliberations.