Lagos State Ministry of Health Inaugurates Technical Working Group

The Lagos State Ministry of Health under the Department of Health Planning, Research, and Statistics (DHPRS) inaugurated a Technical Working Group (TWG) for its Health Financing and Economic Unit. The first quarterly meeting of the TWG was held on the 27^th of July 2022 with support from Development Governance International (DGI).

The Legislative Initiative for Sustainable Development (LISDEL), a member of the TWG was ably represented in the meeting by its State Coordinator, Deborah Olarewaju.

The objective of the meeting was to Review the Health Financing Activities slated for 2022, expand the health financing unit, and discuss proposed health activities for year 2023.

Key stakeholders present at the meeting included a representative of the Honourable Commissioner for Health, Lagos State Dr. Olamide Okulaja, Health Economist to the Ministry of Health, Director of the Department, Health Planning, Research, and Statistics, The Head, Grant Management Office of the State, representative of Lagos State Health Management Agency (LASHMA), the Permanent Secretary, Primary Health Care Board, the Chairman Lagos State Civil Society Partnership (LASCOP), the focal person, Basic Health Care Provision Fund of the State as well as Civil Society Organizations.

In his presentation, on the functions of the Health Financing and Economics Unit, Dr. Okulaja reiterated the need to focus on health economics for the purpose of determining the efficacy of every health intervention, the period of every intervention, the cost of every intervention and to provide perspectives on the outcomes of every intervention in the state.

He further stated that, prior to now, the Lagos State Ministry of Health (LSMOH) had a strong Health Financing Unit (HFU). However, as part of its plans to transform Lagos State’s health system from a consumer to a contributor, the leadership elected to expand the mandate and capacity of the health financing unit to include health economics. A key function of the HFU is to advise on the health policy direction of the state.

The composition of the expanded Health Financing and Economics Unit includes Economic Evaluation and Health Technology Assessment, Health Systems Research, Health Policy Advisory and Health Financing, Simulation Modelling, and Risk Prediction.

A key deliverable from the meeting was the identification of various roles to be carried out by members of the Technical Working Group based on the thematic areas.

Health Financing is a key function of the health system aimed at the mobilization, accumulation, and allocation of resources to cover the health needs of the people, individually and collectively.  The purpose of health financing is to make funding available to ensure that all individuals have access to effective and quality health care services with the goal of providing overall policy and strategic direction towards achieving the defined health sector target.

This will also leverage the existing resources and build appropriate partnerships and ensure that resources are mobilized in sufficient quantity, pooled, and then allocated efficiently for the purchase of services both in the public and private sectors.

Contributed by Deborah Olarewaju and Philip Akoso, LISDEL