Ondo State Government says it has trained 50 medical experts, who will serve as resource persons for handlers of the result-oriented $50m World Bank-sponsored health financing scheme, billed to commence across the state in July.
The programme, tagged, 'State Health Investment Project', has a total package of $150m and it is currently being implemented in Nasarawa, Adamawa and Ondo states
The Project Manager for Ondo State, Dr. Isaac Aladeniyi, on Sunday described the project as "a health system approach meant to motivate the worker to be able to become productive through the use of incentive techniques."
While speaking with our correspondent, he said the pilot scheme of the project, which had been effectively implemented in Ondo East Local Government Area, was designed to reward performance, which would be constantly measured and verified before payment could be made by the bank.
He said, "This system is different from the traditional system, whereby government provides input financing, goods, equipment and other incentives for health workers to provide services.
"Now this programme is stressing the need for a paradigm shift from the traditional input financing, where government is responsible for virtually everything, and at the end of the day, there is ineffectiveness because the capacity to manage is not there."
Aladeniyi added, "Experts, who head the various health facilities in the various communities, far away from the seat of government, who know the needs of the communities where they are based, are unable to help the people there because they do not have the resources.
"Even when resources are available, they have limited control over them. For now, the result-based financing is all about giving managerial autonomy to those in charge of those facilities".
The Punch