Primary health care and universal health coverage in Africa: Sustaining the legacies of Olikoye Ransome-Kuti

Abstract

This month September 2022 marks 19 years and four months since Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, a Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Lagos, and the Director of the Institute of Child Health of the University died at the age of 75 years. At the time of his death, he had been Nigeria’s Minister of Health, the prime mover of the country’s policy and practice of primary health care, and the chief proponent and champion for optimal health governance in Nigeria. He was dubbed by national patriots and international commentators as the “best Minister of Health that Nigeria ever had”. Till this day, his achievements have remained unsurpassed by any health administrator in the country. Indeed, in a recent commission on health in Nigeria published in the Lancet1 , the period covered by Olikoye Ransome-Kuti’s health governance was cited as the most memorable and endearing in best practices relating to health promotion and the associated best indicators of health outcomes in the country. Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti’s contributions to health can be summarised as encompassing universal health coverage through simple, cost-effective, and acceptable approaches that the local populace can easily understand and afford. His understanding of poverty and illiteracy as the social underpinning of health access and outcomes in Nigeria was evident. He emphasized the importance of focusing on the underprivileged and the most deprived to ensure equity and the entrenchment of human rights thoughtfulness into health care delivery