BusinessDay covered some of the biggest health stories in Nigeria, right from the role in bridging the healthcare gap, roles and failures of government, private sectors innovations and the tide of investigations about infrastructures and healthcare welfare in Nigeria.
- Undercover Investigation: The Lagos hospital wards of deadly wait On Dec 31, 2019
- Why Ehanire must arrest Nigeria’s declining healthcare system- On Aug 22, 2019
- Stalled legislations worsen healthcare delivery in Nigerians Sep 25, 2019
- Health is wealth: ‘Minor ailments’ reduce productivity
- How Nigerian female entrepreneurs are bridging healthcare gaps through innovation
- ‘103 senators’ salary enough to vaccinate over 1 million Nigerian children’
- Sterling Bank: Bridging Nigeria’s healthcare financing gaps
- Nigeria loses about 1.3% of GDP annually due to poor sanitation
- ‘Political will, free healthcare to pregnant women will address maternal mortality in Nigeria’
- Nigeria, others to access HIV self – testing kits on CIFF’S $25m investment
A lot happened in Nigeria’s healthcare space in 2019. As the year comes to an end, BussinessDay health analytics gives you a quick review of its top health stories and expert interviews that shaped 2019.
Undercover Investigation: The Lagos hospital wards of deadly wait On Dec 31, 2019
For two weeks, TEMITAYO AYETOTO embedded herself with patients at the accident and emergency centres of two of Nigeria’s biggest tertiary hospitals, LUTH and LASUTH. She uncovers how a lack of bed space leaves patients stranded at the emergency ward for dozens of hours, oftentimes days. With the motto ‘no bed space’, patients suspend their destiny on the hope that an in-patient is discharged, transferred or, rather sadly, dies. When this will happen, though, they have no idea.
The loitering began mounting under the car-park shade, where I observed proceedings from afar. Frail patients in desperate hunt for ease and tired legs of anxious relatives and friends flanked the main entrance. There was only one wooden bench on which an assortment of medical troubles squeezed in a row. It was Tuesday, November 12, at the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Ward of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Lagos.
Beyond the glass-door ushering into the reception hall was a white iron gate manned by two security personnel. All distressed eyes were fixed on that gate in the utmost anticipation of being called in.
Randomly, a triage team of young doctors and nurses in green uniforms would stroll out of it within an average of 30 minutes to an hour to file in new cases and return.
Part 1: Undercover Investigation: The Lagos hospital wards of deadly wait-1
Part 2: Undercover Investigation: The Lagos hospital wards of deadly wait- 2
Why Ehanire must arrest Nigeria’s declining healthcare system- On Aug 22, 2019
Medical practitioners want Osagie Ehanire, health minister, to fix infrastructural deficits in the sector and improve public healthcare delivery across the country.
They also want him and his minister of state, Adeleke Mamora, to work towards improving practitioners’ welfare to stem the massive migration of Nigerian doctors and improve annual budgetary allocation to the sector in the country
“We believe that it is time to invest more in improvement of the healthcare service delivery processes in Nigeria,” said a health analyst.
Francis Faduyile, President, Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), said the minister should be able to work with commissioners for health in states to strengthen service delivery.
“With their collaboration, they can put a lot of pressure on the governors and the National Council of Health to mobilise resources at the primary and secondary levels of healthcare,” Faduyile said.
Why Ehanire must arrest Nigeria’s declining healthcare system
Stalled legislations worsen healthcare delivery in Nigerians Sep 25, 2019
Legislations on critical health policies that could have enhanced access to better care and expanded the Universal Health Coverage for Nigerians have continued to suffer in the National Assembly. Data compiled by BusinessDay show that bills older than a decade have been circumventing cycles of reintroductions without substantial effort to enable them become law. The…
Stalled legislations worsen healthcare delivery in Nigerians
Health is wealth: ‘Minor ailments’ reduce productivity
. . . As basic healthcare becomes luxury
CALEB OJEWALE, ANTHONIA OBOKOH & TEMITAYO AYETOTO On June 28, 2019
A sick population cannot be productive, and in Nigeria, poverty for many people implies they cannot afford to fall sick, or it could cost them their life. If an individual can afford to get treatment, it may perhaps even be understandable if they become ill, but not in Nigeria where 93 million people are estimated to live in extreme poverty.
Nigeria bears a disproportionately high share of the global disease burden, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
One hundred million malaria cases are recorded in Nigeria every year, out of which an estimated 300,000 deaths are recorded.
Even though most of the world has eliminated malaria, it remains a leading cause of death in Nigeria, and poverty is not farfetched from this phenomenon.
With 152 million Nigerians living on less than N720 ($2) a day, paying for healthcare, however basic, has become a luxury.
For instance, in Ikorodu, a suburb of Lagos, to treat malaria costs about N6,000. The malaria MPwider test costs about N2,000 while drugs and consultation cost about N4,000.
To treat typhoid, another ‘common ailment’, costs about N8,000. Treating both malaria and typhoid when the doctor identifies the twin ailments would cost about N15,000, excluding hospital admission which could drive health costs up to about N25,000.
Health is wealth: ‘Minor ailments’ reduce productivity
How Nigerian female entrepreneurs are bridging healthcare gaps through innovation
By ANTHONIA OBOKOH On Aug 30, 2019
Nigerian female entrepreneurs are increasingly bridging the gap in the country’s healthcare system through investment and innovation.
In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, access to good health care is a luxury many cannot afford. No wonder the country’s average life expectancy rate is one of the lowest in the world at 52.2 years.
Since 2001 when Nigeria alongside Heads of State of member countries of the African Union (AU), “Abuja Declaration” declared to commit at least 15 percent of their annual budgets to improving their health sector, Africa’s largest economy has not attained the pledged funding benchmark as the federal government has never voted more than six percent of its annual budget to the health sector.
The highest percentage since the declaration was in 2012 when 5.95 percent of the budget was allotted to health.
However, some women in the country are making great contributions to Nigeria’s health sector, thereby demonstrating equal strength as their male counterparts in the industry.
How Nigerian female entrepreneurs are bridging healthcare gaps through innovation
‘103 senators’ salary enough to vaccinate over 1 million Nigerian children’
By Oyin Aminu, Abuja On Apr 30, 2019
Experts in the Health sector have tasked the government with the full immunization on Nigerian children. The call came in the wake of World Immunisation Day celebration, which is celebrated on the 24-30 of April of every year.
Although Nigeria recorded an unprecedented immunisation coverage from 48 per cent in 2017- to 57 per cent in 2019, the first time in the last 10 years, the country still accounts for the highest number of under-immunised children in the world with over 4.5 million children not immunised.
Speaking at the breakfast session of Health Watch Forum in 2019, with the theme ‘Prevent Epidemics: Immunise’, organised by the Nigerian Health Watch, Oyewale Tomori, a professor of virology and former vice-chancellor of Redeemer’s University, Ogun State, Nigeria said for Nigeria to prevent imminent epidemics, the population must be vaccinated.
“If only some of the children get vaccinated, the virus spread, and if most get vaccinated the virus is contained,” he said.
Speaking on the decadence that has led to the high index of the country, Tomori, said immunisation is the first line of defence against infectious disease and it is one of the most cost-effective and public health interventions that can ensure the averting of estimated 2-3 million deaths recorded under immunisation every year.
‘103 senators’ salary enough to vaccinate over 1 million Nigerian children’
Sterling Bank: Bridging Nigeria’s healthcare financing gaps
By Anthonia Obokoh On Oct 18, 2019
About 139 years after the nation’s first healthcare facility in Obosi opened its doors in 1880, primary and advanced healthcare delivery is beyond the reach of many citizens.
Healthcare development plans and reforms dating back to 1945 all sought to improve access to affordable and quality healthcare for all Nigerians.
Some of the recent reforms undertaken to reposition the health sector for efficient and effective services include the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), National Immunisation Coverage Scheme (NICS), Midwives Service Scheme (MSS) and Nigerian Pay for Performance (P4P) scheme, among others.
Highlighting the major challenges confronting the health sector, Clare Omatseye, president, Health Care Federation of Nigeria, placed inadequate funding and investment at the top of the list. She called for the establishment of a ‘catastrophe health fund’ to provide financing for medical equipment and infrastructure, among other nagging industry needs.
Curiously, foreign aid and philanthropic donations to the health sector are not in short supply. Yet our healthcare challenges remain daunting and is further aggravated by a rapidly increasing population. The health sector is clearly in need of more sustainable sources of funding. And the good news is that Sterling Bank is committed to bridging the sector’s financing gaps to help it save more lives.
Interestingly, Sterling Bank is the reputable go-to bank for financial solutions that help alleviate social and economic challenges in five crucial sectors of the economy. The sectors, known as the HEART of Sterling, are Health, Education, Agriculture, Renewable Energy, and Transport. They are the bank’s focus sectors.
Sterling Bank: Bridging Nigeria’s healthcare financing gaps
Nigeria loses about 1.3% of GDP annually due to poor sanitation
…Third of that cost as a result of open defecation
By Kemi Ajumobi On Aug 15, 2019
I was driving to work recently and after making my right turn away from the third mainland bridge and heading towards Apapa, as I drove further and about to link the bridge to Apapa, I saw a young man sitting on the bridge’s rail and as I drew closer I observed his trouser was ‘sagged’ (or so I thought) but to my surprise, the reason his trouser was down was because he was actually defecating… ‘Openly?’ I asked myself.
I couldn’t help but kept wondering, despite being disgusted at what I saw, how bold he was to be defecating at such a location, in such a manner, in broad daylight? So you would think he is just sitting on the rail, not knowing he was dangerously positioned on a major high way and openly defecating right into the water beneath the bridge.
I am sure this doesn’t only happen in that part of Lagos alone; people do it on dry land and definitely several places across Nigeria where open defecation is still being practised till date. Little wonder we are ranked second among countries practising open defecation globally.
From statistics available in the 2018 WASH National Outcome Routine Mapping (WASH NORM) survey, 24 per cent of the population (47 million people) practice open defecation.
On the 8th November 2018, President Buhari launched the National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Action Plan and declared a State of Emergency in the sector with a strong statement to end open defecation in the country by 2025. The question is, how feasible is this?
Nigeria loses about 1.3% of GDP annually due to poor sanitation
‘Political will, free healthcare to pregnant women will address maternal mortality in Nigeria’
By Sikirat Shehu On Nov 29, 2019
Olusegun Mimiko, the immediate past Governor of Ondo State has advocated for free healthcare services to all pregnant women in Nigeria to reduce the rate of maternal mortality.
Mimiko, who made the call in Ilorin while delivering a paper at the Seventh Kola Olafimihan College of Health Sciences Endowed Lecture of the University of Ilorin, posited that maternal and child health care are cost-effective interventions and have been recognised by United Nations, World Health Organisation (WHO) and in Nigeria policy papers as the desired entry point to Universal Health Coverage.
He, however, suggests that sustainable strategies to reduce maternal mortality would include policy targeting of maternal care, increased public health funding, elimination of financial barrier, health system strengthening and sustained political will.
“A society that did not recognise the vulnerability of a pregnant woman and does not embrace any ameliorative process is guilty of some form of violence against women, said Mimiko in his paper presented- entitled: “Sustainable Strategies to Reduce Maternal Mortality in Nigeria: My Experience”.
Mimiko said training local birth attendants will not save maternal lives in the country, noting that traditional birth attendants should only refer pregnant women to public facilities but not to handle birth deliveries.
‘Political will, free healthcare to pregnant women will address maternal mortality in Nigeria’
Nigeria, others to access HIV self – testing kits on CIFF’S $25m investment
By Anthonia Obokoh On Oct 18, 2019
Knowing one’s HIV status in Nigeria and other sub-Saharan African countries will soon become a thing of ease thanks to the $25 million invested in Global Fund by the Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).
CIFF recently announced the investment aimed at fighting AIDS and dedicated to scaling HIV self-testing in the African region.
The impact of self-testing may be greatest in sub-Saharan Africa, which has the largest number of people living with HIV who do not know their status.
“CIFF is championing HIV self-testing and other methods to promote self-care as one of the most powerful ways for youth, women, and men to take control of their sexual & reproductive health,” said Miles Kemplay, Executive Director for Adolescence at CIFF. “People deserve the choice to test when they want, where they want and how they want.”
Paulyne Chemeli, a Nairobi pharmacist stated that distributing self-test kits is improving the uptake of HIV testing among individuals who require confidentiality or who do not trust healthcare workers.
Nigeria, others to access HIV self – testing kits on CIFF’S $25m investment
