Compared to what obtains in even neigh-bouring African countries, Nigeria’s healthcare system is a lag-gard. And it will take deliberate government measures to lift the sector in the country. This sore state shows in virtually all relevant health care indicators.

 

The 2018 Health access quality (HAQ) index, which measures the quality and accessibility of healthcare based on 32 causes of death which is preventable with effective  medical care, ranked Nigeria 187 out of 195 countries, beneath Egypt (64th), Kenya (112th) South-Africa (119th) and Rwanda (173rd).

 

Similarly, the 2018 World Health Organisation (WHO) data on life expectancy at birth (total years), which captures how long,on the average, a new-born baby is expected to live given constancy  in death rate, ranked Nigeria 178 out of 192 countries.  

 

Total life expectancy in Nigeria, according to the data, stood at 55.2 years, below Rwanda  (68years), South Africa (63.6   years), Kenya  (66.7  years) and Egypt (70.5 years). 

 

Nigeria’s life expectancy  is  tangibly  below the  average  across  the  whole  continent,    which    settled    at    62.5 years.Nigeria      also      performs      worse     than     most     African     countries  on  infant  mortality  rate.  For  instance,  data  from  the  World  Bank  show  that  in  2017,  about  65  infants  below  the  age  of  one  died  for  every  1000   live   births   recorded   in   Nigeria, ahead of Kenya (33.6), Rwanda   (28.9),   South-Africa   (28.8) and Egypt (18.8).Data  on  death  rate,  crude  per    1000    people    for    2016,    published  by  the  World  Bank,  which showed that Nigeria re-corded the highest rate among peers    at    12.5,    followed    by    South  Africa  (9.8),  Egypt  (5.8),  Rwanda (5.8) and Kenya (5.7).Nigeria’s   health   expendi-ture  per  capita,  which  stood  at   $215,   is   also   significantly   below  South  Africa’s  ($1,086)  and  Egypt  ($495),  but  higher  than   that   of   Rwanda   ($143)   and Kenya ($157).

 

Budgetary   allocation   to   health   sector   in   Nigeria   is   a  far  cry  from  15%  recom-mendation    of    the    World    Health    Organisation.    The    Federal   Government   plans   to allocate N315.62 billion to health  in  2019,  which  is  just  3.6% of the budget.Two   months   ago,   Isaac Adewole, minister of health, announced  that  60  million  out of the country’s estimat-ed  population  of  about198  million  suffer  from  mental  illness,  implying  that  about  30%  of  the  country’s  popu-lace are mentally ill.

 

Therefore,   health,   being   a  critical  component  of  hu-man   capital   development,   needs  to  be  given  it  pride  of  place,  since  only  a  healthy  nation  is  a  productive  and  progressive nation.The   poor   state   of   health   care system in Nigeria is great-ly  attributable  to  the  dearth  of  health personnel, migration of health  staff  to  other  countries,  poor   infrastructure   and   lack   of   effective   coordination   be-tween  Federal,  State  and  Lo-cal  Governments,  says  Doyin  Odubanjo,  a  public  health  ex-pert commented.“We   are   not   getting   the   recommended   funding.   We   also have leakages, which is a similar  trend  in  other  sectors.  What  we  have  is  not  enough  and   yet   not   effectively   uti-lized.  

 

This  is  a  double  prob-lem,” Odubanjo explained.This  poor  state  of  health-care  will  linger  poor  as  long  as  government  remains  negli-gent, says Odubanjo. “I am not optimistic,” he notes