National Cranberry Cooperative

Introduction

T

he health sector of any country is indeed a very sensitive part of the country’s economy. This is because there is a relationship between level of productivity of individuals as measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and their state of health. Indeed, this may be the reason why it is often said that “health is wealth”. The notion that health is wealth suggests that a wealthy country is likely to have a system in place that guarantes a minimum decent health status for all its citizens. This explains why many governments in both the developed and underdeveloped countries devote substantial parts of their annual budgets to the health sector. However, whereas the developed countries have a long history of structured health facility and resources planning, the developing and underdeveloped countries oftentimes approach the issue of health planning haphazardly. This explains the myriads of problems often associated with the health sector in these countries. There is therefore the need for a holistic approach to health sector planning. The poor planning approach to health and other sectors of the economy reflects on the poor state of economy, inadequate management and utilization of resources, the low level of exposure of policy makers, and corruption to mention but a few.

Today in Nigeria, it is clear that the health sector is under enormous pressure due to the significant increase in population, increased cost of running the sector, brain drain, inadequate and insufficient health infrastructure, insufficient health practitioners, unequal accessibility between rural and urban dwellers, lower government funding, and insufficient health related supporting services. These problems have contributed to the dwindling services being rendered by