Trends And Challenges Of Public Health Care Financing System In Nigeria: The Way Forward

Abstract

One of the basic functions of government is to provide quality and effective health care services to its citizens as it is only when the people are healthy that any reasonable development can take place. Funding of health care sector in Nigeria is still face with enormous challenges that must be overcome if quality and effective health care service is to be made available to the people. This article reviewed relevant literatures related to public health care financing in Nigeria which were published by journals within and outside the country. An overview of the literatures showed that public health care services in Nigeria is financed through; out-of-pocket payments, tax revenue, donor funding and through health insurance. Trends have shown that the bulk of public health care is financed by households through out-of-pocket payments with government contributing just about 25% of the total health expenditure. The major challenges of health care financing includes, poor funding by government, high out of pocket payment, inadequate implementation of health care financing policy and corruption. This article concluded by recommending that there should be an increase in government funding of public health care, adequate implementation of health care policies, proper monitoring and evaluation of utilization of funds, discourage government sponsorship for treatment of personnel abroad and finally encouraging local production of drugs and other medical equipments.