Health

VIDEO: Tunji Alausa Meets US Ambassador To Nigeria, Seeks Collaboration To Strengthen Health Sector

Published

1 year ago

Oct 17, 2023.

US Ambassador to Nigeria, David Greene and Nigeria's Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Tunji Alausa

Eko Hot Blog reports that the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Tunji Alausa, has met with the United States (US) Ambassador to Nigeria, David Greene, with the aim of collaborating with the US government to provide better healthcare to Nigerians.

The recent meeting between the two leaders held at the minister’s office in Abuja.

During the meeting, which was monitored by an Eko Hot Blog correspondent, Greene expressed readiness for his country to support Nigeria wherever it can.

US Ambassador to Nigeria, David Greene and Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Tunji Alausa

The ambassador, who was accompanied to the meeting by the Director of US President Joe Biden’s global initiative for Malaria and Tuberculosis in Africa, Head of USAID in the embassy, Head of CDC in the embassy, and other development partners from the US, said his country takes its relationship with Nigeria seriously.

In an exclusive interview with Eko Hot TV, Dr. Alausa shared plans of the Nigerian Ministry of Health to work with the US on issues such as digitization of the healthcare system, energy audits, collaboration and sustainable finance amongst others.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyfdglLMT-X/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

According to the minister, the Nigerian healthcare sector had in the past worked in isolation without proper coordination with development partners.

Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Tunji Alausa, meeting with US Ambassador to Nigeria, David Greene and other development partners from the US

“The meeting was to discuss how much we can collaborate with the United States government and also development partners. We talked more about how we can better coordinate. What happened in the last several years is there had been minimal coordination with these development partners,” he told our correspondent.

“Everyone has been working in silos and there’s a huge amount of money coming into our country from these partners. But the coordination has been very poor. So, this meeting was focused on four things.

“Firstly, we discussed on digitization; how we can digitize our healthcare system, how the US government and the various agencies of the US government can help and support us with that. We have a clear idea of what we want to do here.

“Secondly, we talked about energy audit for our federal tertiary hospitals; how they can help us do energy audits so that we can start using renewable energy for our hospitals because this is becoming a crisis.

“The third thing we talked about was how to strengthen our healthcare system through robust collaboration. And of course, how to ensure sustainable financing in our Healthcare system.

“It was a very good meeting; very interactive. They came with lots of ideas; we also had a lot of ideas from the Minister of State for Health’s office that we all discussed.

“There are huge areas where can collaborate here. We are very excited that after this meeting, there’s a lot of things we can quickly work on and help us hit the ground running.”

US Ambassador to Nigeria, David Greene and Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Tunji Alausa

On financing the healthcare sector, the minister said Nigeria has enough resources to fix the system if properly utilised.

He added that President Bola Tinubu is committed to changing the narrative and providing every necessary resource to trigger positive change in the health sector.

See more photos from the minister’s meeting with the US diplomat: