Lack of adequate health facilities and infrastructure deficit mirror major problems in Nigeria’s health sector.
The country has about one doctor to 6,000 patients and maternal mortality is 814 deaths in 1,000 births.
Before the close of today’s business, 3,000 women will have died of preventable diseases. Estimated 432 Nigerians die of tuberculosis annually, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
About 80,000 breadwinners die of cancer yearly and 300,000 children will be killed by malaria between now and March 2020.
More so, 15,000 Nigerians die of heart-related diseases each year. About 2,000 doctors leave for the United Kingdom, the United States or Asia to make more money and work in better environments.
These grim statistics and harsh realities characterise Nigeria’s healthcare system, which ranks 197 out of 200 countries in the WHO ladder or 171 out of 195 (in terms of investment) on the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s table, according to a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), for the third quarter of 2018.
Despite these startling statistics, some entrepreneurs are providing solutions to problems in the health sector, making money from doing so.
Ola Orekunrin, chief executive of Flying Doctors Nigeria (FDN), is one of them.
She provides majorly air ambulance services, moving injured patients as well as patients with health challenges to hospitals for adequate attention.
She is a medical doctor, helicopter pilot and the healthcare entrepreneur. Brown founded Flying Doctors Nigeria, West Africa’s first air ambulance service, after her younger sister died while traveling in Nigeria. Today, the 33-year-old entrepreneur, who graduated from the University of York, UK, has over 20 aircraft, which have airlifted more than 500 air travellers.
Her outstanding performance earned her a MEXT Japanese Government Scholarship which enabled her to carry out research in the field of regenerative medicine in Tokyo, Japan.
From her undergraduate days, Orekurin has always been interested in creating new means of healthcare delivery and in reforming the health sector generally. The tragic incident which claimed her sister’s life pressed her desire for the reformation of the health sector, especially in her home country.
Since the establishment of her company, Orekurin has been able to manage it effectively and groomed herself by learning how to fly planes and helicopters. Her firm currently has the largest network of ground and air ambulances in West Africa.
The company, which has its headquarters in Lagos and branches in Abuja and Port Harcourt, boasts of no fewer than 30 workers, including doctors.
The FDN has airlifted hundreds of patients, using a fleet of planes and helicopters to rapidly move injured workers and critically ill people from remote areas to hospitals, ranging from patients with road traffic trauma, to bomb blast injuries and gunshot wounds. She has worked on moving them quickly and safely, while providing a high level of medical care en route.
Recently, she complained of certain forces that hurdle entrepreneurship in Nigeria.
“You pay 30 percent of your profit. If you do it the way it is supposed to be done, maybe 50 percent of your revenue can go to tax. But then, you now forget you owe the banks and you have to pay 20 percent interest. You also pay to Lagos Inland Revenue Service (LIRS). These are the kind of things that affect our competitiveness and stop us from reaching these standards.” Brown said, while talking about high interest rates in Nigeria at an event in Lagos.
Her success shows that entrepreneurs can begin to take a closer look at Nigeria’s health sector to solve the big problems.
“A lot of young people are moving to the health sector, but the enormity of the problems in the sector shows we need more,” Ifeanyi Okeleke, co-CEO of Kenrancis Farms, who is eyeing the sector, told Start-Up Digest.
“In many cases, you need to be a health practitioner to do better, but outsiders can actually invest. What we lack in our health sector is investments and entrepreneurs need to understand the sector better to put their money there,” he said.
Gbemi Faminu
