ADDRESSING shortage of healthcare providers requires planning and projection. For instance if the country needs 12,000 doctors over the next five years there will be need to create avenue for such in terms of training.

 

But after training them, how to retain and distribute them so that they can cover the Nigeria population is another issue because there is freedom of movement. When you train people and they have better offer somewhere else, you can’t stop them.

 

In the face of this shortage, there are some states without a single specialist doctor and they are not even looking for a specialist. There are states in this country where the only specialist is at the Federal Medical Centre, FMC.

 

There are so many Nigerian doctors outside the country, and one way of fast tracking development and quality healthcare is to attract them back to the country. Many of them want to come back but want improved infrastructure in place first. Government can provide incentive which was what India did, like giving them land or tax relief maybe for five years because they have the skills but they are working in different environment from what exists here.

 

 

For a skilled surgeon to practice successfully, you need all those supportive services that ensure you are still providing that high level care.

 

Special bank

The diagnosis that will almost explain what the patient problem is even before going into the surgery is required and to acquire those equipment require a lot of money, they don’t really need to bring that money out of their pocket, just like government did for agriculture and industry, providing special bank for them, you can provide fund or special bank in which the interest rate will be low, the operational rate now is about 26- 30 per cent if you make special concession like maybe single digit interest rate that will encourage people to take loan from such special bank to develop healthcare.

 

Government should also pursue idea of encouraging various specialists to come together and provide a platform because the days of unit specialist is fading away. Gradually one man hospital which is what we have in a lot of private hospital in the country is going out of fashion. There is need for collaboration to minimise risk.

 

In service delivery, time is of essence, if somebody is ill, he wants to get back to his state of good health as early as possible, because for every minute he is ill, is a loss of revenue to the family and larger society. When you don’t have the right personnel to provide the specific care he needs, he wait his turn, there are some hospitals where people wait for elective surgery, and these are surgeries that are not emergency. They have to wait for upwards of six months or nine months.

 

The surgeon cannot do more than a certain number per day and there are not enough surgeons so they need to wait for that special care. These are basic problems that happen when you have shortage of qualified medical personnel, and in the course of waiting for service sometimes other problems may develop, for instance, anaemia.

 

Normally for most people is not dangerous but while you are waiting, you can develop complication, obstruction which can be life threatening.