The President of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Francis Faduyile, has said that there is poor healthcare delivery in Nigeria and poor funding for the health sector and appealed to government to ensure that healthcare delivery is efficient and affordable.
The NMA President, who stated this in a press conference with journalists in Port-Harcourt, Tuesday, as part of activities marking this year’s Physicians Week, with the theme, “Universal Health Coverage: Leaving no one behind,” which is currently taking place in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, said that there is also poor doctor-patient ratio in Nigeria among other conditions which inhibit effective healthcare delivery in the country.
He said: “The healthcare delivery in our country is still largely out of pocket which constitute about 70% of our health expenditure as opposed to the recommended 30-40%, abysmal low coverage by NHIS (National Health Insurance Scheme) which is still less than 5%, poor budgetary allocation to health (less than 5% of the total budget), inequitable distribution of human resource for health with inverse distribution of health personnel compared with the population with over 70% of health personnel serving 30% urban dwellers as against less than 20% health personnel serving over 70% population living in our rural areas, generally low doctors/health workers to patients ratio, low per capita income, poor access to healthcare facilities among others. The above are some of the factors responsible for the unacceptable health indices in our beloved nation”.
The NMA President said that the theme of the Physicians’ Week was chosen to highlight the fact that “all people and communities can use promotional, preventive, curative, rehabilitative, and palliative health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship”.
He said that there is need to improve the enrolment of Nigerians in the National Health Insurance Scheme to achieve universal health coverage and address the country’s poor health indices.
Faduyile said that the NMA wants the healthcare delivery in the country to be affordable to all Nigerians, and commended the federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari for trying to “reinvigorate” the primary healthcare system by building primary healthcare centres in all wards of the federation to ensure that affordable healthcare is provided for Nigerians.
He said that there should be increased funding for the health sector and called on political leaders in the country to show enough political will to see that there is “quality” and “effective” healthcare delivery in Nigeria.
The NMA President also said that there should be training and retraining of medical personnel in the country and stressed the need to have an acceptable doctor-patient ratio in Nigeria.
He also said that polio should be finally “kicked out” of Nigeria and stated the need for members of the NMA to be involved in formulating government policies in the fight against polio in the country.
Meanwhile, the President of the NMA has said that activities lined up for this year’s Physicians’ Week include prayers in churches and mosques across the country by all NMA state branches including also the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, adding that there will be a road walk to draw the attention of President Muhammadu Buhari and other top government officials, traditional rulers, religious and opinion leaders, market women and civil society organizations, the general public, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), to the need to “expand” the universal health coverage and increase efforts to end polio in Nigeria, and fight quackery in the medical profession in the country.
