Health, insurance, risk expert’s link poor transparency, accountability as bane of Nigeria’s health sector
Experts in the healthcare sector, risks management, insurance and regulatory authorities have blamed lack of transparency, accountability and poor corporate governance as the bane of Nigeria’s health sector.
This is further explained in a governance research conducted by Conrad Clark Nigeria Limited for the health sector, which shows that only 4.86 percent of hospitals in Lagos have governance structure and 3.54 percent have risk management structure.
At the third edition of the Clinical Risk & Governance summit 2017, hosted by Conrad Clark Nigeria in Lagos with the theme “Clinical Emergencies in Nigeria”, the experts underlined “pandemic” negligence in management of accident victims, disease outbreak, poor response to general clinical emergencies by government, medical practitioners and regulatory bodies with outdated policies and poor governance.
According to them, all of these has resulted to barratry, multiple of thousand deaths across Nigerian hospitals.
Olusegun Mimiko, former governor of Ondo state speaking on challenges of healthcare management in Nigeria lamented poor finance management and lack of accountability in governance.
According to him, the antidote to the challenges include having “political will for health at the highest level of government and legislation” improved funding (targeting 15 percent for health in the budget), implementation of the national health act, strengthening of the NCDC and Improvement of stakeholders engagement.
Olaolu Omifare, head of health & life operations at Continental Reinsurance Plc in a research paper on “Use of HMOs and Insurance products in funding healthcare in Nigeria”, said 71 percent of the 5000 respondents have heard about health insurance but over 52 percent do not have any health insurance subscription. Hence, the need for more health insurance coverage by HMOs and the need for government to make the scheme mandatory, improving regulation and exploring alternative funding, he opined
Joachim Adenusi, CEO of Conrad Clark Nigeria in his remark emphasized on poor governance structure in the health sector, calling the attention of the delegates to the result of a governance research conducted by Conrad Clark for the health sector showing only 4.86 percent of the hospitals in Lagos have governance structure and 3.54 percent with risk management structure. Adenusi who is called ‘Oga Risk’ called on all health stakeholders to play their roles effectively, manage uncertainties and increase productivity across board.
Sanusi TAB, registrar, Medical & Dental Council of Nigeria in his paper spoke on the role of the council as a regulatory body for health practitioners in ensuring proper conduct of professional practice.
While Chikwe Ihekweazu, CEO, National Coordinator, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) looked at solving other healthcare management challenges in Nigeria with emphasis on the implementation of “the One health approach”- the need to establish a multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary coordination mechanism (political and technical) at FG, State and LGA level.
Mamsallah Omisore, a seasoned family physician with a bias for medical education and health policy lamented the risk of self-medication and patient safety with using the internet.
Jeanine Bowen, Managing Director of EuraCare a South African, resident in Nigeria for over sixteen years with in-depth knowledge of the sector, spoke on Pre-hospital emergency care as a strategy for minimizing death in Nigeria, calling on the government to put proper structure in place for toll-free emergency call center across the entire country as well as provide adequate resources for all agencies involved in emergency management in Nigeria.
Martin Agbili (aka Agility) spoke on the role of fire fighters in emergency management; in his address, he gave a few tips on safety measure as it relates to fire emergencies.
Modestus Anaesoronye