The presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has expressed concern over the state of Nigeria’s Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs), warning that the reported failure of 97 per cent of assessed facilities across 16 states to meet national staffing standards could reflect a broader national crisis.

Peter Obi, in a post on his Facebook page, said the situation was not merely a statistic but a serious threat to the health and wellbeing of Nigerians, noting that about 80 per cent of PHCs nationwide were reportedly not functioning.

He argued that a country could not build a healthy and productive population without adequately staffed and functional primary healthcare facilities.

According to him, “Behind every understaffed PHC is a pregnant woman who might not receive timely care, and a child who could die from a preventable illness.”

Obi said the state of the country’s healthcare system was partly responsible for Nigeria being classified among the most challenging and poorest places to be born and live.

He maintained that access to healthcare should not be determined by a person’s income, stressing that government had a fundamental responsibility to provide quality and affordable healthcare for citizens.

The former Anambra governor also criticised the prioritisation of infrastructure projects as indicators of development, saying the success of government should instead be measured by improvements in citizens’ lives.

“Progress is not best measured by flyovers, new bus stops, or airports that are rarely used,” he said.

He said greater emphasis should be placed on the number of lives saved, operational health centres, availability of qualified health workers and the quality of healthcare delivered to ordinary Nigerians.

Obi called for increased investment in primary healthcare, recruitment and retention of essential health workers, and improved access to affordable and quality healthcare across the country.

“We cannot create a New Nigeria while allowing our people to die from issues that a functioning Primary Healthcare system should prevent,” he said.

He added that government priorities must focus on investing in Nigerians and strengthening the primary healthcare system so that citizens, irrespective of their location or economic status, could access quality healthcare. (The Sun)