Stop Paying Lip Service To Health, Medic Admonishes FG
A former President of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, Dr Osahon Enabulele, has urged the Federal Government, various elected state and local governments to stop paying lip service to the health sector.
Government has also been admonished to translate into reality, the widely circulated promises including the promise to allocate 15 per cent of the National budget to the health sector.
Enabulele who is also the Vice-President, CommonWealth Medical Association, said that to reposition the country’s health sector, there is a need to urgently implement the National Health Act, NHA, amend the NHIS Act, strengthen the national health system (public and private), reform the governance system as well as curtail outward medical tourism among others.
Delivering a keynote address during the Annual Award/Symposium of the Health Writers Association of Nigeria, HEWAN, with the theme: Challenges In Nigeria’s Healthcare Delivery System And Solutions where he was awarded best Media Friendly President of the Nigeria Medical Association, Enabulele noted that the performance of the country’s healthcare delivery system remains unpleasant due to several conspiring factors and challenges.
He, however, posited that with the successful berthing of the National Health Act, Nigeria now has a historic significant opportunity to improve her healthcare delivery system and attain Universal Health Coverage predicated on the constitutional imperatives of social justice, equity and egalitarianism.
He said poor governance and political commitment to the health of the citizens remains one fundamental undermining factor that has led to the sorry state of Nigeria’s healthcare delivery system.
“This poor governance and political commitment which largely results from a poor understanding of the economic importance of health and healthcare by most political and public officers at all levels of government, can be seen in poor budgeting for health, poor utilisation of Nigeria’s health facilities and outward medical tourism. “The poor understanding of the nexus between health and the economic prosperity and productivity of nation-states partly explains why 17 years after Nigeria hosted the Abuja 2001 summit of African Heads of Government which declared that African Governments should allocate a minimum of 15 per cent of their budgets (at local, state and national levels) to the health sector, the Nigerian Government (aside from a few state governments) has never attained even half of the African benchmark on budgeting for health.
“A look at the sectoral allocation to health at the federal level from 2009 to date shows an average allocation to the health sector of less than 6 per cent.
The situation is even worse now in the current dispensation and much worst at the state and local government levels where the aggregate sectoral allocation to the health sector ranges from 1-3 per cent,” he stated.
He further lamented that with a humongous capital flight out of Nigeria, to the tune of well over $1 billion as at 2013, with the Indian economy and hospitals securing over 50 per cent of the capital outflow, it was shameful to see some of the elected political leaders and public officers stay on queues in foreign hospitals for basic medical consultation and health check-up, instead of adequately investing in quality health infrastructure and services within their jurisdictions.
He stressed the need to consistently organise advocacy and awareness programmes through which the political leaders and policymakers will be educated and re-educated on the significant nexus between health, productivity and the economic growth and wealth of their communities.
“Aside from continuous enlightenment, education and advocacy, significant and concrete efforts must be made to truly curtail the use of taxpayers’ resources to finance frivolous foreign medical trips by Nigeria’s political leaders and public office holders,” he said.
“While I call on government at all levels to show a good example by abiding by Section 46 of the National Health Act which seeks to reduce the abuse of taxpayers’ resources used to finance such trips, I charge committed and altruistic non-state actors to seek legal enforcement of Section 46 of the NHA, in the case of its violation by any political or public office holder.
This effort will help to check not only the huge leakages and wastages through indiscriminate government-sponsored foreign medical travels by political and public office holders; it will help rebuild the confidence of Nigerians in Nigeria’s healthcare delivery system,” he stated.
