The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has revitalised over 901 Primary Health Centres (PHCs) across the country and is working to upgrade 2,701 additional PHCs to ensure at least one fully functional PHC per ward nationwide.
  
The Executive Director of NPHCDA, Dr Muyi Aina, who disclosed this at the agency’s first quarterly press briefing yesterday in Abuja, said that the agency had conducted an assessment of over 18,000 PHCs across the country and identified yawning gaps which are now being tackled through increased federal investment and strategic partnerships with states and development partners.
  
He said: “We have assessed all of the primary health centres in two batches. The first one started with 1,100 or so; it was 1,600 basic healthcare provision facilities, and some PHCs are receiving money directly from the Federal Government every quarter to enable them to operate.

“What we found was that while a lot of services were being provided, our health workers were stretching themselves. Nigerians are visiting the facilities, but only about a fifth of them at that time met the bar that we would consider the minimum level that would be a primary health centre to be, and that defined what that would be.”

“We have also done a second wave of assessment of over 18,000 additional PHCs, and those are even worse, understandably so, in terms of their quality, because the basic healthcare provision may or may not be enough. We have a lot of gaps in quality, and Nigerians were yearning for a system they could trust to provide them with primary healthcare services. To achieve this, we figured that we need functional primary health centres nationwide.”
  
Aina explained that the level of functionality of the PHCs, which the government is trying to put in place is properly, neatly constructed, and decent enough that anybody can walk in and achieve those services.

He added that the PHCs must also have equipment that is needed to provide services and commodities, such as medicine, vaccines, and other commodities.
  
He observed that PHC revitalisation is a priority and the goal is to have PHCs that pregnant women can walk into and be delivered safely to other people with linkages to more advanced referral centres for some of those women who will experience complications and need to receive caesarean sections or other complicated emergency obstetric services as part of their maternal care.
  
Aina noted that the NPHCDA is increasing the number of PHCs funded under the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF) from 8,406 to 17,600, adding that over N22 billion was disbursed to PHCs in 2024.