Resolving Nigeria’s Health Care Quandary, By Obikili Chinedu Gee Premium Times October 21, 2018 Resolving Nigeria’s Health Care Quandary, By Obikili Chinedu Gee2018-10-21T14:27:04+00:00Opinion Comment (1)  The solution starts with the setting up of public-private partnerships (PPP), having the tertiary hospitals being handed over to private organisations and people to run, not necessarily on a permanent basis, but on pre-agreed terms – perhaps for like 20 years. A pilot of such programme was carried out by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration… A lot is being said about the health sector in Nigeria and what needs to be done. There seems to be an obsession with increasing the budget for every sector as a solution to its problems but quite often that is not the way to go. There is a paradox in Nigeria: We don’t have enough doctors and so we train them at one of the cheapest rates in the world and then we are unable to utilise them. Being well trained, they are welcomed with open arms to countries that understand the role health care plays in driving the economy. We are probably one of the leading global exporters of doctors. In essence, we are sort of a charity organisation because we train doctors with our resources and then let them go for free. And, currently, at an alarming rate. We need to begin to think out of the box to solve Nigeria’s health care problems and stop blaming the lack of funds and corruption all the time. These are Nigeria’s health care problems: 1. Funding (for hospitals and patients); 2. Massive brain drain, due to the lack of jobs and good working environments; 3. Concentration of doctors and hence high quality health care in the urban centres and cities; 4. Lack of quality care, as tertiary hospitals are currently working as glorified secondary hospitals (and if closely examined, what is offered is far from tertiary level care). With these issues bedevilling our health sector, unique solutions would need to be made after the proper dimensioning of the problems on ground.
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