*WHO D-G, UN Sec-Gen to deliver goodwill messages

By Chioma Obinna

The Healthcare Federation of Nigeria, HFN, holds its 2023 Annual Conference billed to run 3rd and 4th of February 2023 in Lagos with the theme “Building the Healthcare of Our Future”.

The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, is expected to declare the conference open, while the Chairman Senate Committee on Health, Sen. (Dr) Ibrahim Oloriegbe, will give legislative remarks.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Dr. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, are among dignitaries to grace the conference.

The UN Secretary-General, Mr António Guterres, WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and Sokoto State Governor and Chairman of Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Aminu Tambuwal, are expected to deliver goodwill messages.

The 2023 HFN Annual Conference comes amid several challenges facing the healthcare ecosystem in Nigeria, including fiscal policy gaps/implementation deficiencies, monetary policy tightening/unpredictability, depletion of human resources across the healthcare ecosystem/value chain, and insufficient healthcare funding.

The healthcare system also faces insufficient stakeholder collaboration for the effective resolution of sectoral challenges, insufficiencies in healthcare sector education, and healthcare sector remuneration for industry professionals, among other industry issues.

“These challenges are headwinds that require a structured and collaborative platform to effectively address them and agree on a Framework of Action for output implementation. Hence, the imperative for the institutionalisation of an HFN Annual Conference as an integral segment of HFN’s Annual General Meetings,” HFN said in a concept note.

HFN, a coalition of Nigerian private healthcare sector stakeholders, said the 2022 annual conference would seek to highlight critical industry challenges, educate/secure the buy-in of sector regulators and policymakers on the sector issues and their humongous impact on national socioeconomic development, and agree on a collaborative Framework of Action with all stakeholders (public/private, development partners, civil society groups, sectoral business membership organisations, etc.) on how to tackle all identified challenges, outlining responsibilities, and an implementation schedule/protocol.

The conference also looks to securing stakeholder commitment for effective sector repositioning through the focused implementation of the Agreed Framework of Action, HFN said.

Various speeches and panel discussions on solutions to the highlighted challenges to attain better healthcare for all have been arranged to be presented in six  segments followed by a  roundtable panel session of HFN EXCO with health sector editors of print, electronic, and social media, to be followed by HFN’s Annual General Meeting and election.

The Healthcare Federation of Nigeria (HFN) has been at the forefront of healthcare sector advocacy to draw stakeholder attention to the critical issues of all segments of the healthcare ecosystem and champion solution options to those issues.

In February 2022, HFN held a special meeting with Senator Oloriegbe, Senate Health Committee Chairman, which was aimed at forging a new paradigm with the private health sector to address critical issues affecting the healthcare sector through collaboration with the parliament to ensure an all-beneficial consensus for the health sector and the populace in general.

HFN also held a national stakeholders’ meeting on the draft National Policy on Incentivising the Health Service Industry to present the draft document to critical stakeholders across the public and private sectors.