The Nigerian Government disclosed that the Japanese Government is offering to donate the sum of  $18.2 million to improve the Nigerian healthcare sector.

This was disclosed by Mr Clem Agba, Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, during an assessment visit over the utilisation of the N49 billion intervention fund disbursed by the FG to 52 federal health institutions, at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital on Tuesday.

What the Minister is saying

• We also work with USAID and I signed those agreements where they also gave us 200 ventilators. I am aware that Irrua Specialist Hospital got three and the UBTH also got three from the 200 ventilators that we spread throughout the country.

The Minister disclosed that the N49 billion released for Healthcare during the pandemic came as a necessity to equip hospitals and build up-to-date infrastructure in the sector including 10 bedded Intensive Care Unit (ICU), isolation centre equipment and Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs), among others.

“Yes, we had some initial losses, but we have learnt from those and I am sure from what I have seen here that the government has been able to assist you to build that capacity.

“We hope there wouldn’t be a third wave of the pandemic. However, if there were to be, we have now learnt a lot of lessons on how to handle the pandemic, unlike the situation we had early last year when it started.

“We are also now better equipped to do testing. In some of the hospitals I have gone to, they told me this is the first time they were seeing molecular laboratory,” he added.