The Vice President,Prof.Yemi Osinbajo has called for public private partnership (PPP) for effective healthcare delivery in Nigeria.The Vice President made this call in Abuja at a stakeholder’s meeting involving key players in the health sector towards scaling up innovative solutions for efficient health care systems through PPP. He noted that Public Private Partnership was vital towards achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) through primary healthcare.

He stressed the need for a comprehensive National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to ensure quality healthcare delivery to the citizenry adding that Government cannot finance healthcare from public funds alone hence the participation of the private sector was pertinent.

Earlier, in his welcome address, the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said that the Federal Ministry of Health had embraced this PPP initiative to leverage on the assets, competencies, resources, network and innovation of the sector to accelerate improvement in health outcomes.

He reaffirmed that the service delivery innovation challenge was unprecedented in that it was the first time the Nigerian health sector had taken this approach to private sector engagements, stressing that Nigeria was the first Global Financing Facility (GFF) country to define a clear pathway for integrating the private sector into its Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, Child and Adolescent Health plus nutritional service delivery in Nigeria.

He was quoted saying: ‘’the improvement of our reproductive health indices and developmental milestones to meet both national and international target is a collective responsibility’’.

While commending investors in the Global Financing Facility, partners and all stakeholders who worked tirelessly to improve maternal, child and adolescent healthcare delivery in Nigeria, he urged the private sector, traditional and religious leaders as well as academia to join ranks with government in addressing these challenges in service delivery to ensure that Nigeria remains on track in the quest to end preventable deaths among women, children and adolescents.