Reach Out To People With Health Challenges – UNICEF

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has urged stakeholders in the health sector to reach out to people with health challenges, especially the poorest.

UNICEF’s Executive Director, Mr Anthony Lake, made the plea in a statement on Wednesday in Lagos, while expressing sympathy on the death of UNFPA Executive Director, Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin.

Osotimehin died on June 4 in New York, U.S.

Osotimehin was appointed on Nov.19, 2010 as the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for a four-year term.

He was reappointed to this position on Aug. 21, 2014.

He was Nigeria’s Minister of Health and left this office in March 2010.

Lake said, “My sadness today is tempered by the fact that I spoke with Babatunde (Osotimehin) last Friday, as we did so often, about some cooperative ventures.

“I wish I had told him then how much I appreciated him and how much I always enjoyed complaining to him about the way his national attire made my national dress look all the more boring.

“We cannot now say to him those things left unsaid, but there are things that we can do.

“All of us can work ever-harder, every day, together, to reach more people with health challenges, especially the poorest and the most in need,“ he said.

The executive director said that his first encounter with the late Osotimehin was when he was asked to join a group of experts to review a study entitled: “Narrowing the Gaps“.

According to him, the study shows that focusing efforts on reaching the hardest-to-reach children, rather than the easiest-to-reach, is cost effective.

“It was my first encounter with the former and formidable Nigerian physician and Minister of Health. I was impressed by his pointed questions about our methods, numbers and assumptions.

“I was, even more impressed and inspired when, after his brain was satisfied, he offered his heart to the cause, saying that he wanted to be a travelling champion for equity-based health approaches across Africa.

“Thereafter, when he became Executive Director of UNFPA, he brought the same caring concern for the poorest and most disadvantaged women, children and adolescents everywhere,“ Lake said.