In Nigeria, our hospitals are like death traps to unsuspecting patients who run to the facilities to seek medical care for their ailments. The problems facing Nigeria 's medical system are enormous. It ranges from poor welfare systems for medical workers to unavailability of modern facilities and to poor power supply to health facilities. In this post, I will like to look at the problems facing the health system in Nigeria and to see how far the medical workers through different affiliate associations have engaged the government and finally weigh the option of strikes as the solution to the many problems.
Problems Facing Nigeria's Health System
One of the first and paramount problems facing Nigeria's health system is that of poor equipment. This is the reason why many politicians seek medical attention outside the shores of Nigeria because they know what is obtainable in the western world.
Another one is the corruption going on in high places. Funds that are meant for the hospitals are usually diverted. Basically, the politicians are the brains behind the diversion and since they are members of the ruling nothing happens to them.
Also, the funding of Nigeria's health system is not adequate for the operation of health facilities, equipment, medicine and staff salaries.
In some spheres, the building is not conducive enough to be described as a medical facility. This has grossly hindered the delivery of quality healthcare service.
There is also a shortage of healthcare workers including doctors, nurses and other important staff. This has led to over-engaging the available medical workers. The shortage of healthcare workers is caused by brain drain as many qualified and certified health workers are seeking greener pastures in oversea nations.
The Medical Association of Nigeria has made attempts to bring to the knowledge of the government that healthcare services are scarce in the rural areas with high concentration of patients while the patients cannot come to the urban centres that have some level of available healthcare workers due to long distance and high cost of transportation.
Our health system is strained by the high rates of infectious diseases that must be attended to like malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, diabetes hypertension and so on.
The list of problems facing the Nigeria healthcare system is endless but I would like to end it here so that I could nail the main discussion.
To this end, there is no other option at the disposal of the health workers than to go on strike because that seems like the only language the government understands.
Unfortunately, the government is not directly affected by the consequences of the strike because most of the public office holders do not make use of public health facilities and most of them are heartless and do not have conscience that could pick them to act promptly to end the ongoing strikes.
For me, the strike is a welcome idea because our leaders also misplace the priority of the citizens to soothe themselves first. When the current government resumed, new (tear-rubber) SUVs to the tune of sixty million Naira for each legislator. This same amount can be used to solve the problems associated with the healthcare system in Nigeria.
Lets not forget quickly that the residence of the vice president was renovated with over fifty billion naira, a whopping amount that would have given the public health facilities a face lift had it been appropriated to it.
I see it as a shame that the government, though, knows what to do but refused to take responsibility. In my opinion, the strike should continue until all their demands are met and satisfied once and for all. The Medical Association of Nigeria should not negotiate for less.