It is of no reasonable doubt that the most significant ingredient of life is health and this is widely captured in the popular quote: “Health is Wealth”.
Worried by the perplexing deterioration of the Nigerian Health sector, this article will carry out a concrete analysis of the decays in the sector over time and also proffer lasting solutions in combatting these challenges using the recent pandemic: COVID-19 as a blueprint in the analysis.
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Before the outbreak of COVID-19 in Nigeria, the wife of the President and the First Lady of the country, Aisha Buhari openly criticized the poor state of the Aso Rock clinic which is meant to serve the President, top government officials and their family members in Aso Rock. No wonder, the President, His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari spent a larger part of his first tenure receiving medical attention at The United Kingdom.
The outbreak of Covid-19 is the latest that has exposed the poor state of the health sector across the globe. If the developed countries have their health facilities over stretched to the pandemic with the U.S.A experiencing over 2,000 death to Covid-19 in just a day, what then can we say of Nigeria that has continuously paid little attention to the sector?
Many scholars have maintained that Covid-19 has come to expose the deaf ears of the government to the poor state of the health sector.
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The latest outburst by the Chairman of the Presidential Task force (PTF) on Covid-19 and the Secretary of the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha claiming that he did not know that the Nigeria’s health sector was in a depleted state that needed a national emergency until Covid-19 broke out is quite a worrisome statement by a top Government official.
The outbreak of Covid-19 has come to expose that the state of the health sector is in doldrums and comatose facing challenges such as maladministration, infrastructural deficit, poor funding as a result of poor budgetary allocation, shortage of personnel as a result of brain drain syndrome, policy mishap among many obvious challenges facing the sector.
These successive paragraphs will shed more light on how to improve on the sector in Nigeria.
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To address the issues before us, the government must declare a state of national emergency on the health sector as soon as possible. This is a step that can be deployed to address the obvious challenges bedeviling the health sector.
The issue of health must be taken as a critical issue of national security, but the reality in Nigeria is that the political class have abandoned the health sector thereby leaving it in a helpless state. Statistics of health indices by international agencies point that at 50, Nigeria was far from achieving the minimum required health standard as buttressed by S.G.F point to the fact that the sector is in dire need of primary attention by the government at all levels.
Moving further, to address the challenges bedeviling the sector, the government should work hand-in-hand with the private sector in improving on the helpless state of the health sector.
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In any nation, the private sector plays a critical role in its national development for it what it will only take the government to do is provide an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.
It is obvious that the government cannot handle the challenges facing the health sector alone. Hence, the government should work hand –in- hand with interested stakeholders by providing an enabling environment for them to thrive in order to address the challenges bedeviling the sector.
The key roles played by private sector towards the outbreak of Covid-19 in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized. A prominent example was the role played by Guarantee Trust Bank in collaboration with the Lagos State Government which has attracted the attention of the public on the potential role they played during national emergencies.
This is a clear indication that if the Government can do more for the private sector, the challenges facing the health sector will be a thing of the past.
Moreover, one of the obvious reasons why the health sector is lying in a helpless state is the maladministration by the government. This is reflected in the poor budgetary allocation to the sector. The allocation to the health sector in Nigeria is laughable and a key reason for its underdevelopment.
Going by the 2001 Abuja Declaration by African Countries to commit 15% of their national budget to the health sector, unfortunately up till date the allocation of Nigeria to the sector has fallen far short below the benchmark.
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If as a nation we are dedicated to addressing the challenges bedeviling the health sector, it is imperative for the government to allocate at least 15% of the national budget to the sector and a substantial part should be used in strengthening medical research.
In addition, the government need to urgently address the rising migration of health personnels to other parts of the world in search for greener pastures which has produced a brain drain in the sector.
The capable hands have been lost to the developed nations as a result of the unfriendly atmosphere for them to thrive in Nigeria. This is a reason we have shortage of personnel in the sector and every year the rate at which the best brains in the sector are being lost to the developed world keeps deteriorating.
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In 2005, a staggering 2,392 Nigerian doctors were practicing in the USA. In 2010, the figure rose to about 5000 doctors practicing in the USA (excluding the nurses) (Ejim, 2014), how much more can we talk about 10 years after. Until the government provide better welfare condition to our health workers, the sector will continue to suffer from this syndrome.
Consequently, this essay has proven beyond doubts that the outbreak of Covid-19 has opened us to the reality that we need to collectively put on our thinking caps in making the health sector a matter of national security as soon as possible. Yusuf (2008) opined that:
“We all need to come together as one united body called Nigeria and take destinies in our hands in moving Nigeria forward”. A recent Lancet study of COVID-19 in West Africa noted that countries in the region have “poorly resourced health system rendering them unable to quickly scale up an epidemic responses…” .We have lost Abba Kyari, a popular Senator from Lagos State, Sen. Bayo Osinowo and many ordinary citizens to the deadly pandemic, but can we be rest assured that this has served a wakeup call to the government that all is not well with the health sector and indeed overhauling the sector is long overdue?
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Adelakun Tufayl Olamilekan is a student of International Relations, Lagos State University (LASU), Ojoo, Lagos.
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