The Federal Government’s Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), called “Gateway” for the vulnerable groups, has recorded significant achievements in the third and fourth quarters of 2025 in Borno.
The Borno BHCPF implementing team made this known during the BHCPF Gateway 1st and 2nd quarters forum meeting in Maiduguri.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that BHCPF is Nigeria’s flagship health financing programme, established in 2014 to deliver Basic Minimum Package of Health Services (BMPHS) to the vulnerable groups on emergency medical treatment, among others.
NAN reports that the BHCPF is funded by an annual grant from the federal government, equivalent to at least one per cent of the consolidated revenue fund, alongside international donors and private sector contributions.
However, the third and fourth quarters of 2025 reports indicated that Borno’s BHCPF had, within the period under review, paid over N200 million capitation for the services coverage of pregnant women, children under five years and the poor.
The vulnerable populations are elderly persons, persons living with disabilities, sickle cell patients, and mental health patients, respectively.
Mrs Thalma Waindu, a Director with the Borno State Contributory Health Care Management Agency (BOSCHMA), an agency covering 160 out of the 167 BHCPF’s service facilities in the state, said that the programme had in the state paid a total of N590,277,639.53 on capitation in the third and fourth quarters of 2025.
She stated that the capitation payments were made to support the primary health facilities to ensure uninterrupted provision of BMPHS.
According to her, of the over N500 million, a total of N138,956,853.14 is paid as fee-service reimbursement covering secondary healthcare referrals, specialist consultations, emergency services, hospital admissions, surgical procedures and diagnostic investigations.
The director also said that a total of 62,196 out of the 135,449 targeted patients have benefited from various medical services rendered by the BHCPF gateway programme, with some records of more complicated cases in the fourth quarter across the state during the period under review.
Waindu, however, expressed BOSCHMA’s determination to continue to maintain quality assurance as one of its strategic priorities during the period, adding that 154 primary healthcare facilities were assessed using the approved BHCPF’s quality assurance tools.
She announced that BOSCHMA was aggressively expanding its coverage capacity to facilitate room for more enrollment and validation of beneficiaries across the participating primary health care facilities in the state.
The director also expressed delight that the agency was able to achieve a lot despite the challenges of insecurity in Monguno, Mabbar, Kukawa, Damasu and Askira Uba Local Government Areas of the state.
Waindu further listed delays in the submission of claims by some facilities, the inability of some primary healthcare facilities to use electronic referrals, incomplete documentation during facility assessment, stock-out of some essential medicines in selected facilities, limited ICT infrastructure and real-time reporting, among some of the identified challenges.
Muhammad Chabbal, Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, gave a breakdown of Borno’s BHCPF implementation profile.
Chabbal said 25 per cent of the 120 PHCs in the ongoing programme were categorised under the high tier, while the remaining 75 per cent of the PHCs were under the low tier.
According to him, a total of N800,000 is being disbursed to each facility under the high-tier category every quarter, while N500,000 is being disbursed to each facility under the low-tier category on a quarterly basis.
The director also identified a delay in the disbursement of funds and authorisation by the national, irregular gateway forum meeting
Delay and non-submission of funds retirements are among the major challenges from their findings.
In his remarks, the Executive Secretary of BOSCHMA, Dr Saleh Kaza, said that the fund was being released by the objectives of the federal government’s initiative, which was to provide support for the healthcare of the vulnerable groups nationwide.
Kaza pointed out that the fund was a performance-based fund, which was why the forum was having the meeting on a quarterly basis in order to look at our performances, challenges and the gaps and how the programme could do better.
He, however, expressed appreciation to the teeming members of the forum for achievements made so far, and urged them to intensify efforts toward strengthening the primary healthcare services across the facilities in the state. (NAN)
