Assessment Of Health Seeking Behaviour And Healthcare Payment Options In Nigeria

Availability of resources, location of residence, and other health related factors affects the health seeking behaviour of people in Nigeria especially people in poor settlements. Many of the citizens pay for their healthcare needs through the regressive out-of-pocket payment method thus this could be a hindrance to seeking better healthcare. This study assessed the health seeking behaviour and payment options of slum dwellers using a one month recall period. Data was collected using a well-structured interviewer-administered questionnaire. The quantitative statistical tools used in the study analysis were tabulations, frequencies and testing of means. The findings showed that about 32.8% of the heads of households and 25% of other household members were sick one month prior to the interview. The major illnesses was presumptive malaria (54.9%) and (55.1%) for heads of household and other household members respectively. Majority of the head of households and other household members first sought for treatment from patent medicine vendors. The major payment option available for slum dwellers to pay for their health needs was through the out-of-pocket and it was used by 62.1% of heads of households and 73.2% of other household members. Only about 3% of the household heads and about 3.9% of other household members had any form of health insurance. The policy implication is the poor health seeking patter where majority seeks care at patent medicine vendors may be improved with a good financial risk protection mechanism such as health insurance, which will improve access

Novel Basic Health Care Provision Fund in Nigeria: Can Workforce for Service Delivery Improve?

Health financing policies are political decisions that involve all stakeholders because of its potentials in altering allocations in the budget and statuesque. This important economic tool should always be used in economic policies of nations especially in developing economies because of the wrongly perceived notion that there is no investment case for health. The government of Nigeria in 2014 signed into law the National Health Act. This Act made provision for additional funding to the health sector through earmarking to the tune of about $200 million annually, with the fund called the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF). The study aims to determine how many more health workers will be employed in the Nigerian health force using the earmarked funds in the health sector at the primary level of care. The study is a quantitative study design that involved the use of primary data from the BHCPF's implementation tracking tool. Data was collected during a health facility assessment in four systematically selected states in a random manner, which is in the first phase of the BHCPF implementation. This study showed that about 91,946 people will be employed directly into the Nigeria's health system if the Basic Health care Provision Fund is successfully implemented. This will in turn bridge the gap in human resource for health especially in the rural areas and improve the quality of service delivery at primary health care level in Nigeria. Therefore more funds should be allocated to the health sector to create jobs and bridge the gap in human resource for health in the underserved areas