Infrastructure, finance, law limiting Universal Health Coverage

Poor infrastructure, financial and legal constraints are hitting hard on Nigeria’s Universal Health Coverage, a scheme that is targeted at providing full and equal access to healthcare to people and communities in various parts of the country.

“In order to create a catalytic process within the system, we need to focus on tackling to the issue of financial access to healthcare, holding individuals and entities accountable and measuring the impact of interventions and activities in the healthcare sector. Infrastructure challenges are still a key issue and the need to sensitise and make people aware of the inherent advantages in a healthy population, especially now that we are still a young aged country,” said Chibuzo Opara, Co-CEO DrugStoc Nigeria, in an e-mailed response to questions.

Opara said approaching the issues of universal healthcare is about elaborating equitable and affordable healthcare at the end of the day, adding that there should be an agreement and a commitment between citizens and decision makers on where the country places universal healthcare among other important priorities.

A recent NOI Polls survey shows that almost eight in 10 Nigerians (79 percent) do not have access to health insurance. The poll shows that almost five in 10 Nigerians (45 percent) rely on private hospitals/ healthcare facilities for their healthcare needs, with Federal Government hospitals (25 percent) coming a distant second. Moreover, poor healthcare facilities and the lack of facilities were identified as the main factors responsible for the high rate of infant mortality experienced in Nigeria

Most public hospitals are ill-equipped to handle disease outbreaks while private hospitals are expensive for the largely poor mass of Nigerians.

The country is currently cash-strapped, hit by oil price lows, which have cut revenue by 50 percent.

Out of N7.298 trillion budget of 2017, only 4.17 percent (N304 billion) was allocated to the health of over 180 million Nigerians.

Health experts say for Nigeria to achieve universal health coverage to deliver substantial health, economic and political benefits across populations, healthcare provision should be considered as human right and no one should be denied access to healthcare due to financial reasons, gender reasons, issues related to geographical barriers or any other issues which might create a barrier to healthcare access.

“Today, Nigeria is yet to find solutions to most of the health challenges in the country, like incessant outbreaks of Lassa fever, high maternal and child deaths, poor primary health facilities, lack of functioning cancer machines, malnutrition, poor health emergency responses and many others. This is happening because the Nigerian governments, both at federal and state levels, do not place priority to healthcare,” said Runcie Chidebe, executive director of Project Pink Blue.

Chidebe said that poor health budgeting and financing are among the rationales for Nigerian having the worst health records in the world.

“Citizens are not aware that the right to the highest attainable standard of health is a human right, including access to timely, socially and culturally acceptable and affordable healthcare of appropriate quality”

“The government does not see health of her people as their human right; it is seem as one of the sectors that individuals can cater for themselves”

“I have asked this question several times, Is Healthcare a Human Right? Until we are able to answer this question, we may continue to have a misplaced priority” said Runcie.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the Universal Health Coverage is a political choice for countries themselves to make. A study released recently by WHO showed that 85 percent of the funding gap to achieve universal health coverage could be met by countries themselves, although up to 32 of the poorest countries will require development assistance.