The economic productivity, social harmony and political stability of any given nation is directly proportional to the quality of healthcare delivery and standard of education that are available to the citizens. That underscores the importance of the popular saying that: ‘health is wealth’. Nigeria cannot therefore, be an exception. Factors such as the number and how well equipped the clinics and hospitals are, in terms of qualified professional nurses and doctors, medical equipment and stable supply of electric power and water all come into play.
The bitter truth however, is that the unexpected onslaught of the Coronavirus pandemic, which took off from Wuhan,China in December, 2019 and has exploded across continents has exposed the level of preparedness of several countries in times of health-related emergences, such as we currently experience. Even as scientific researches began to unravel the root causes of the Coronavirus, the ease of spread became a clear and present danger! That was going to be an enormous challenge on the healthcare givers.
That brings to mind, the ratio of qualified physicians to the population of countries, as recommended by the World Health Organization, WHO. Specifically, it recommends one medical doctor to 1,000 citizens of each country. It is always a thing of immense joy therefore, when any country attains what is referred to as the ‘Golden Finishing Line’ of 1-to-1,000. The reason is that it indicates the readiness of the country to achieve one of the cardinal objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs), which is affordable yet qualitative healthcare delivery that is available to the citizens.
For instance, India attained that milestone mark precisely in 2018. According to Raman Kumar and Ranibir Pol, India with 479 medical schools and an annual intake of 67,218 MBBS students proved to the world that it could walk the talk on taking care of its citizens, populous as it is. But unfortunately, 44% of the WHO member countries have less than 1 medical doctor to 1,000 citizens. And Nigeria is one of such. It has a paltry 0.3 to 1,000 citizens as compared to 1.8 for China, 2.6 for the UK,2.8 for the United States, U.S., 4.3 for Sweden and 5.83 for Italy. That is, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) Report.
That dismal figure for Nigeria is therefore, a source for serious concern and more importantly, action. It would be recalled that the country witnessed massive brain-drain in the health sector back in the ‘80s as one of the spin-off effects of the Structural Adjustment Programme(SAP), as brought into effect by the then Gen. Ibrahim Babangida-led military administration. Several of them could not resist the greener pasture of countries such as the U.S., U.K, and the United Arab Emirate, UAE where their pieces of bread were going to be more well buttered!
Trust the average Nigerian with his or her inbuilt high level of resilience, creativity and professionalism. They excelled outside our shores! One would recall that during the Ahmed Tinubu-led governorship of Lagos state some Nigerian-born medical doctors were invited to separate co-joined twins and they succeeded here in Lagos.
Incidentally, about the same period a Nigerian medical doctor by the name of Colonel Oviemo Ovadje(now retired) achieved the feat of inventing Emergency Auto-Transmission System(EAT-SET). It comes as a low-cost blood transfusion employing auto-mechanism. He patented the invention in nine countries and has won awards from the UK, up to Switzerland.
In a similar fashion, another Nigerian, Prof. Samuel Achilefu came up with a ground-breaking development of a set of high-tech, cancer visualizing goggles. They assist surgeons to see cancer cells in real-time while operating on patients. This won him the prestigious St. Louis Award in 2014.There are several other Nigerian-born medical scientists doing Nigeria proud by the products of their creative ingenuity.
But back here in Nigeria not a few clinics and hospitals are crying foul over decrepit infrastructure, inadequate qualified medical professionals, as well as ill-equipped laboratories and hospitals. Only such could explain a situation that has top-notch politicians, including the president, Muhammadu Buhari jetting out of the country for medical tourism, once they fall ill. Even the Aso Rock clinic has been unable to justify the sums of budgetary allocations over the past four years. In fact, the First Lady, Aisha Buhari openly ventilated her grouse over a clinic that cannot boast of paracetamol, syringes, and as recently exposed by the inability to treat Abba Kyari, the former and now late Chief of Staff there, ventilators!
The sordid scenario is no less replicated across several states of the federation. The facilities in some of the Isolation Centres as well as the recall of some retired medical personnel to help out during this emergency situation attest to this. The COVID-19 pandemic has therefore, come as a wake-up call on our governments-at the local council, state and federal levels- to do the needful.
The way forward is to begin with a creditable Data Base on the healthcare sector. To do this, several questions need answers. What is Nigeria’s true population, state-by-state and each local government area? How many nurses, midwives and doctors do we have and how many more do we need? How many clinics-both public and private- do we have and how do we make up for the inexcusable gaps? How can we leverage on the high quality of Nigerian-born medical personnel outside the country by luring them back home with some mouth-watering incentives, or by simply asking that they render selfless service on the platform of patriotism.
We need frequent and reliable demographics on the healthcare status of Nigerians to serve as the basis for planning and effective and impactful policy paradigms. Such was conducted in the U.S. from 2010 to 2016. From the researches the government got to know that though the number of physicians increased from 277 to 295 per 100,000 of its citizens, they were still not enough. That led to the declaration of ‘an impending doctor shortage’ outcry before the Coronavirus pandemic.
In addition to this move, it has become imperative to enforce laws at the federal and state levels to compel the budgetary allocations of at least 18 per cent to the health sector. And some sums of the funds available should be set aside to take care of emergency situations as the world is currently going through. Proactive actions rather than wishful words will see us overcome the challenges ahead. The quality of healthcare available to the citizens, in addition to health insurance that covers a large number of the citizens will assist to make health the wealth of the nation.
– Baje is a public commentator and analyst