More than 70 percent of public primary health facilities do not have functional basic medical equipment, a new report by the National Bureau of Statistics to evaluate the performance of health service delivery in Nigeria has revealed.
A report by the NBS, in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Health and the World Bank, has highlighted significant gaps in Nigeria’s healthcare service delivery.
The report identifies several key challenges contributing to these gaps, including the lack of healthcare facilities in certain communities, inadequate medical personnel, outdated or broken equipment, poor quality of service, and an ineffective referral system.

The 2023 National Health Facility Survey (NHFS) report surveyed 3,330 primary, secondary, and private health facilities selected from the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Findings from the data surveyed :
- At the time of the survey, only 39.4% of all Primary Health Facility providers received Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) training.
- Nationally, health providers in PHFs had more adequate knowledge of the management of malaria (80.3%) than pneumonia (41.0%) and diarrhea (51.7%).
- The survey’s findings show that an average of 50.6% of essential drugs were available in Secondary Health Facilities and 34.3% in Primary Health Facilities (PHFs).
- Sixty-eight percent (68.0%) of secondary health facilities and 29.9% of public primary facilities have functional basic medical equipment.
- The result shows that 18.5% of facilities had Family Planning pills, 19.5% had injectables, 20.5% had male condoms, and 17.8% had implants /Intrauterine devices (IUDs)
- The average percentage of public health facilities that provide Antenatal Care (ANC) Services was 79.7%, with the highest recorded in the South-South (88.9%) and the lowest in the North-West (67.9%). It was observed that the Primary health facilities that provide iron supplements as part of ANC services were 94.0%, while 97.4% provide folic acid.
- The availability of vaccines at public health facilities during the time of the survey are as follows: measles antigen was available at 51.9% of facilities, Pentavalent at 51.0%, Oral Polio at 52.0%, BCG at 51.0%, Rotavirus at 47.3% and Pneumococcal at 45.8%. In addition, inactivated Polio was available at 48.6% of facilities, Human papillomavirus at 37.7%, Tetanus Toxoid/Tetanus Dexoid at 49.0%, Yellow Fever at 50.0%, and Meningitis at 48.1%.

- An average of 76.3% of healthcare providers correctly answered questions on the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) protocol.
- Out of all the health facilities surveyed, 34.5% had records of funds expended, and 25.8% had up-to-date records. Fewer primary health facilities (33.4%) than secondary facilities (61%) had expenditure records available. Expenditure records were up-to-date in 24.9% of the primary health facilities as against 46.9% of secondary facilities
- Diagnostic accuracy was measured as the percentage of correctly diagnosed cases of the five relevant maternal and child health conditions. The overall diagnostic accuracy in all facilities was 56.2%.
- The National average for competency in the management of maternal and child complications by health providers was 41%.