Financing Universal Healthcare Coverage in Nigeria Through the Basic Health Care Provision Fund: Challenges and Potential Solutions.

Abstract

This study examines the Nigerian government's efforts to provide Universal Health Care (UHC) and reduce out-of-pocket spending through the Basic Health Care Provision Funds (BHCPF) scheme. The study gathered insights into the degree of UHC accomplishment through the implementation of the BHCPF using qualitative and quantitative secondary data analysis approaches, which combined a series of interviews with Statista data. The findings show that BHCPF implementation must be better aligned with the needs of healthcare recipients, particularly at the local government level, with poor infrastructure, insufficient funding, a lack of workforce, limited medicine, low awareness, and reachability identified as key factors making the scheme inaccessible. For immediate improvement, supported by Statista data, the study recommended telemedicine to address some of the challenges of reachability/accessibility because it represents an advantageous approach, given its significant contribution to the expansion of healthcare accessibility and the mitigation of health inequities in under-resourced countries around the world. Furthermore, the Public-Private Partnership method backed by desk-based research method was deemed ideal for addressing health care infrastructure provisioning challenge. Overall, this study demonstrates, on the one hand, the difficulty in improving access to care at the local government level, given the multifaceted and complex nature of the barriers to care for low-income people; and on the other, the urgent need for more holistic collective action to improve quality healthcare services for all in Nigeria.