Public Healthcare in Nigeria

The public health care system in Nigeria has deteriorated over the years, this is partly as a result of the lack of resources and blatant neglect for the needs of the people. The continued abandonment of the need to effectively address public health issues directly affects Nigerians who are usually at the receiving end.

Some major public health issues faced in Nigeria include; Infectious diseases, infant death, non-contagious diseases, maternal deaths, inadequate disease surveillance, poor hygiene and sanitation, injuries incurred from road accidents, and control of disease vectors. The rate of child mortality is greatly accounted for by diseases such as diarrheal diseases, vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD), acute respiratory infections (ARI), and malaria.

The effect of these issues on the public is further exacerbated by factors like insufficient payment of healthcare workers resulting in unmotivated workers that provide poor care quality, inadequate budget allocation, brain drain, unreliable data systems, lack of preparation for pandemics, and overall lack of a response strategy. The geographical inequality in the standards of healthcare is also a factor to consider when looking into the public health challenges that Nigeria currently faces as some locations are generally neglected when it comes to the availability and quality of health resources.

Another factor to consider is the ignorance of the people as some individuals generally equate health problems with spiritual attacks and mythical beliefs and would rather opt for untrained and unskilled local herbalists rather than established health care institutions resulting in many “unnecessary” deaths.

The Millennium Development Goals of Nigeria (MDGs) are goals with stated targets and clear deadlines with the aim of eradicating poverty and improving the general state of health of the people. The MDGs of Nigeria are faced with a lot of challenges such as weak institutions and governance, feeble starting conditions, conflicts, among many others.

What is the way forward?

The fact is that a good primary health care system would go a long way in meeting the majority of the health needs of the people and ensure the achievement of the health goals of the nation.

Healthcare in Nigeria can be improved by employing certain strategies such as:

1. Creating awareness and educating the public on infectious diseases, the importance of hygiene and taking proper preventive measures, the role of health care institutions, and beneficial health information. Organizing health campaigns would go a long way in educating a large number of people at once.

2. Incorporating effective surveillance systems and medical monitoring structures that would help us identify a potential health issue before it develops into an outbreak. These systems if integrated appropriately would allow for deeper analysis of probable public health threats and bio-attacks.

3. Adequate support from the government in the form of financial support for healthcare workers and provision of infrastructure and healthcare facilities. This would help create more incentive to work and the resources to boost this work.

Improving the quality of healthcare in Nigeria is a task that would require continuous effort and effective teamwork on our part, everyone needs to be involved to take the quality of our public healthcare and health delivery to a better level.