The new administration has a huge task at hand in sorting out the health care industry in Nigeria. Indeed, the Vice President appears to have taken this matter under his direct supervision and started consultative meetings with stakeholders and technocrats way before the swearing in ceremony. The task is mammoth and unlikely to be the sole responsibility of the government.
Seriously, the private sector and you, as an individual have an important role to play.
First and foremost, people are dying daily in our hospitals. Sadly, the majority of the deaths are clearly avoidable. Out of pocket payment before service leads to delays in care. Out of stock drugs leads to increase in sickness, complications and death. Many relatives transport patients to hospital using motorcycles, keke-napep, private cars and taxis: because we do not have a credible ambulance service. Our ambulances are better engaged in moving the dead!
The other day, a hospital I visited in Abuja did not have crucial life saving drugs necessary for resuscitation in the emergency unit. If you have to ask the sick patient to get up and go buy drugs, you are on a slippery slope. If we have to ask relatives to go and donate blood in an emergency, we are preparing patient for the hereafter.
Patients die because facilities such as beds and materials like common oxygen are not available when required. I lost a baby many years ago because oxygen was not available. We lose patients daily because electricity failed and there was no diesel in the generator. Or in the case of some hospitals, the man who was supposed to turn on the generator was busy snoring his head off! Doctors and nurses are maiming and killing people in Nigeria due to a bad healthcare system for which no one has claimed ownership.
And nobody seems to ask ‘What can we do to help’?
Look after yourself
Preventive health is the way forward. You have to look after your own health and desist from risky behaviour. Exercise is key and reputed to prevent many diseases. It certainly helps to control your weight and with it the risk of stroke, heart attack and sudden death. Cleanliness is next to Godliness and so providing a clean and safe environment is important to prevent infections. Watch what you eat and drink and certainly avoid smoking, alcoholism and drug abuse. Remember those who died of methanol poisoning recently? It certainly was not some deity!
Get your own personal doctor
You need your own general practitioner to look after things like immunization, blood pressure, blood sugar, routine medical and health checks. Things like regular pap-smear and mammogram in women, blood tests and rectal examination for prostate problems in men. The doctor MUST be close to your home or place of work and easily accessible. But, you need a sensible and trained doctor, not a quack. Not your local chemist doubling as a doctor and certainly not your pastor. You cannot afford to be that stupid in 2015!
Incidentally, private medical practitioners provide over 80% of care in Nigeria, so use one of them. Work with the doctor in the clinic close to you and then help the clinic in whatever way you can to be the best at what they do. This is important.
Volunteer in a hospital
Our hospitals need help and you need our hospitals. So, why not help the hospital so they can provide you with better care. Volunteer your time at the local hospital, nursing home or rehabilitation centre. Help with cleaning the environment, directing and shepherding patients to different parts of the hospital. Why not raise funds in community projects for your favourite local hospital? Why not help with sponsoring a nurse or doctor to do some research? The government is certainly not encouraging any research: instead they rely on foreign agencies to tell us what is happening here! Ask what the hospital needs in specific equipment, building projects or creation of special services and raise funds for them.
Shun medical tourism
We need to develop our own healthcare system to provide effective and efficient service at the point of need. We need creative thinkers to sort out the different tiers of healthcare (primary, secondary and tertiary), making them distinctly different yet seamlessly integrated. A referral system should exist to process the patient from primary to secondary and if necessary to tertiary centres. The current practice where specialist hospitals like National Hospital, Abuja, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, Lagos, treat malaria and typhoid like primary health care centres should stop.
Restructure the Insurance
The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is God sent and we must make it work. We need to ensure that the NHIS provides better level of protection for all. It should be modified, strengthened and rebranded to improve its coverage. The more people signed into it the better it becomes.
Now, go and multiply!
NB: Join the befriending scheme of Stroke Action, Nigeria. Florence would love to hear from you. Call her on 08189999902. Email me for more information about volunteering in Abuja. Let us make this happen.