In Nigeria, our healthcare sector has been suffering poor attention from the government; this has led the Nigerian health care standard to be slumping daily. Providing adequate and affordable health care is a fundamental human right as well as the primary responsibility of the government for its citizens.
Arguably, how would a country with an annual deficit running in the health infrastructure gap and the annual budget for both the Federal and state level be buoyant enough to cater to the growing infrastructure needed in the sector? For the first time, the country experienced its highest health budget of 4.5% in 2020, resulting from the novel coronavirus’s adverse effects. From 2007 to 2019, the country’s GDP health expenditure was below 4.0%, as against the agreed 15% annual budget by the Heads of State of the African Union at the Abuja Declaration of 2001 to improve the health sector in the region.
Evidence has revealed that the sector remains weak due to poor funding, lack of coordination, fragmentation of services, deteriorating state of medical facilities, inadequate and decaying infrastructure, and unfairness in resource distribution by the government.
However, in recent times, the private healthcare sector has proven to the world that it has enough capability to improve and strengthen the sector. To optimise this, the World Health Organization (WHO), during its Sixty-third World Health Assembly, passed a report titled: “Strengthening the capacity of governments to engage the private sector in providing essential healthcare services constructively.” The findings aim at supporting and ensuring countries are making better decisions by engaging with the private sector to achieve the SDG health goals and targets.
Regrettably, it is very painful and excruciating that many people still fail to understand where the government and the ruling elites have proven their incapability to manage the sector by neglecting the country’s health centres for foreign medical tourism. As of 2016, the then Minister of Health noted that Nigeria spends $1bn annually on foreign medical tourism.
Reinstating the significance of the private sector providing accessible healthcare delivery, Nigerian health tech startup and founder of HelpMum, Dr. Adereni Abiodun, calls for more private sector and local partnerships. He made the call during the just-concluded Global Citizen’s 2022 Campaign on the topic “End Extreme Poverty NOW.” In his words: “Health care should be affordable, and the best way to achieve this is not just saying we will wait for the government.”
He further said that for the health care issue to be solved, we need to have more local private sectors working with grassroots leaders to fund projects that will make health care affordable and accessible.
Therefore, transforming the face of Nigeria’s health sector in this modern era requires more innovative measures by the local private sector in alliance with the grassroots leaders. Thus, waiting for the government should never be an option, as they have demonstrated their incapability to bring a lasting solution to the sector.
