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The unhealthy healthcare system; plight of a Nigerian

Seeking medical assistance from most government hospital in the country is like seeking a visa lottery to the US, with the cumbersome processes, outdated technologies, and unequal staff strength due to the mass exodus of health care providers to foreign countries with seemingly better odds.

A few days ago, one of our correspondences had to visit a government-owned hospital in Benin City for a specialist consult. Relaying her experience, you could tell that the health sector has failed every Nigerian.

While waiting for her card to be registered, an emergency case was brought into the waiting area accompanied by her relatives, a young lady in her mid-twenties, non-responsive, visibly weak and unaware of her environment. It took more than 30 minutes before she was brought into the emergency room and another 20 minutes for her to be attended to.

Although other patients and relatives were apprehensive of her case with a perceived negligence on the part of the hospital staff, they were nonetheless happy when the lady later gained consciousness about an hour 30 minutes later.

Another peculiar one is a case of a mother who discovered, upon personal medical investigations, that she had retained placenta 3months after childbirth. She visited the hospital countless times to complain of incessant bleeding, with her Doctor reassuring her that there was no cause for alarm.

Even when she found out about the cause of the bleeding through extensive scans, she went back to the hospital and the best the management could do was write out some antibiotics for her to get outside, unremorseful of their apparent negligence, keeping in mind that retained placenta could lead to Post-Partum Haemorrhage, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality.

And please, let’s not go into the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), with their annoying chants of ‘out of stock’.

According to the United Nations, the World population would increase from about 7.6billion to 11.2 billion by the year 2100.

Depressingly, the World Health Organisation (W.H.O) released a statement on Wednesday that, for those able to afford quality health care services, 800 million of such would spend at least 10% of their budgets on health expenses.

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Responding to the report, World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim, said it is apparent that nations should include ending poverty in their bid to getting better health outcomes.

 “Investments in health, and more generally investments in people, are critical to build human capital and enable sustainable and inclusive economic growth. But the system is broken: we need a fundamental shift in the way we mobilize resources for health and human capital, especially at the country level. We are working on many fronts to help countries spend more and more effectively on people, and increase their progress towards universal health coverage”.

According to PREMIUM TIMES, the report is a key point of discussion at the global Universal Health Coverage Forum 2017, ongoing in Tokyo, Japan.

The Forum is co-sponsored by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), UHC2030, the leading global movement advocating for UHC, UNICEF, the World Bank, and WHO.

In attendance are; Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UNICEF Executive Director, Anthony Lake, with Heads of States and Ministers from over 30 countries, including the Nigerian Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole.

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