Nigeria partners UK to provide health care for aged

The Federal Government and the Birmingham City University, United Kingdom are in partnership to provide healthcare package and safety net for the aged  in the country.

The Minister of Health  gave this assurance in Abuja, when a 3-man delegation from Birmingham City University led by Prof.Hafiz Khan visited him, to present a proposal on how to improve quality care for the aged population.

He said: ”When you look at our population profile, we are a youthful population with about 70 per cent youth and 30 per cent elderly, so when we look at the aged, we are planning for the future.”

He noted that as Nigeria increase in population; definitely the aged population will increase as a result of demographic transition, adding that Nigeria needs to look at the issue of the elderly in the context of our social system.

Adewole said government is committed to advancing the course of the elderly so that they would not feel neglected noting that aged people are susceptible to non-communicable diseases like hypertension, diabetes and cancer.

“We will support it to make it done, we need to have a policy framework, and we need to have a strategic development plan that is costed to drive this concept to fruition,” the Minster noted.

Earlier, leader of the delegation, Prof. Hafiz Khan of Birmingham City University said the  concept has two components-International Policy framework for Nigeria as a whole and Social Security stressing that the policy would be implemented both in the long and short term.

He assured that they would help in capacity building of health professionals in the country adding that they have done it in Vietnam, China and the Netherlands and would be replicated in Nigeria. He said: ”we need to organise training Programme for our health professionals in elderly care dealing with aged people suffering from dementia and mental disorder.”

The Project Coordinator, Health Package for Improving Quality Care on Ageing Population and Diseases in Nigeria, (HEPIQ-C), Dr. Saidu Ahmed Dumbulwa, said the aim of the project was in tandem with the mandate of the government health policy of this current administration and to dedicate the benefit of the collaboration to the elderly in our society by helping the aged and their family members to overcome the challenges of ageing.

”We will evolve a natural world where the aged will have unhindered access to quality healthcare and quality of life”.

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