Health of the body is the most important of human focus and desire. The saying goes a healthy individual is a wealthy person. All through history man has always placed a high premium on his health willing to give everything to defend it.
Just as individuals, nations invest vast resources to ensure and constantly improve the health of its population. This is often expressed in the establishment of primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare institutions. These institutions are not only mandated to keep the population healthy but also to train frontline medical personnel whose responsibility it is to run the system efficiently.
Nigeria’s healthcare delivery system is currently experiencing much strain and according to some commentators is near total collapse. The tales of woe continue to mount and it gets worse everyday.
Negative as the trend may be, it will not all be blamed on a lack of trained and dedicated personnel operating the system. This situation is largely blamed on a lack of facilities and poor motivation for professionals. It is not news that existing facilities in Nigeria’s healthcare system are moribund and at best obsolete. Tools for diagnosis and treatment are old and in many cases completely lacking. Were such equipment exist, the will to maintain them for optimum output becomes another issue for contention. Thus doctors and nurses in Nigeria work practically with their bare hands.
It is not uncommon for patients to be sent from government hospitals to private establishments for certain specialised tests owing to a lack of facilities. It’s fallout is a lack of confidence in government hospitals among the populace.
This further fuels medical tourism. Ailing Nigerians now travel out of the country in droves for specialised and not so specialised medical services. Europe, America and lately southern Africa are the hot destinations of choice for medical tourists from Nigeria. West African countries have also become attractive to Nigerians seeking Medicare because the people continue to loose faith in the system. Those who can muster the resources to travel out of the country for qualitative healthcare do so while those who can’t are left to contend locally with an ‘uncaring’ system.
The drain on the nation’s economy is enormous. Scarse foreign exchange that could have gone into investment is siphoned to other nations in providing a service that should be available locally if adequate facilities.
Motivation is another major issue that burdens the system. Doctors and professionals have embarked on and continue to embark on endless industrial actions to press home demands for better conditions of service. Doctors are owed accumulated allowances and emoluments. Many have become frustrated leaving the system for greener pastures abroad.
Nigerias loss became gain for other nations! Available data from the General Medical Council of the United Kingdom shows that 727 Nigerian doctors migrated to the UK in five months between Dec. 2021 and May 2022. Nigerian doctors are in number the third highest foreign doctors working in the UK coming behind only India and Pakistan. And this data is only for the UK! Doctors from Nigeria continue to be attracted to the US in droves owing to better facilities and motivation.
Ironically in a statement credited to Nigerias minister of health, the high government official says the effect of recent high migration of doctors on the system is insignificant. The minister insists that the nation is producing enough doctors to replace those leaving for foreign lands!
The world Bank standard doctor to patient ratio is set at 1 doctor to 600 patients while Nigeria operates at a ratio of 1 doctor to 5000 to 6000 patients. The claim of the health minister falls flat on the face of this hard fact.
According to the Nigerian Medical Association, the country’s health sector operates at a lowly 4.7% specialist ratio while Nigerians spend over $1 billion dollars annually on medical tourism.
From the aforegoing, it is clear that all is not well with our health sector. The trend must be reversed quickly because anything short of this will tip the situation off the edge. Nigerian doctors should be made to live and work comfortably in the country with adequate facilities. This naturally will halt medical tourism and save the nation much needed foreign exchange.