As 2015 begins, practitioners in health want the Federal Government to show more commitment in the sector, Despite the fact that Nigeria successfully checked the Ebola Virus Disease in its tracks less than two months after it crept into the country last year, stakeholders still hold the view that all is not well with the sector.

 

According to them, there is need to do more this year if the nation’s health care system is to reclaim its lost glory. There judgment is not far from the truth. For one, activities in many public hospitals came to a halt for many months with patients suffering more pain and agony. This followed numerous industrial actions embarked upon by the different health professionals in the sector.

 

Indeed, critically ill patients were turned back at emergency units of many of the hospitals between July and August last year as doctors, who should tend to their wounds, were at loggerheads with the Federal Government.

 

Even now, respite is still elusive in the sector as the public hospitals offer only skeletal services. In fact, pharmacists, nurses, physiotherapists, radiographers and other allied workers under the aegis of the Joint Health Sector Union are sitting at home waiting for the Federal Government to heed to their demands.

 

According to stakeholders, for Nigerians to get a deserving health care system, the Federal Government must this year take bold but decisive steps to tackle industrial disharmony, medical tourism and the fake drug syndrome facing the sector.

 

Close open drug markets – PSN

While regulatory agencies in many developing countries spend their resources on developing research on vaccines and medicines, their counterparts in Nigeria, stakeholders say, expend huge resources mopping up counterfeit and substandard medicines coming in through the nation’s porous borders.

 

The President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Mr. Olumide Akintayo, warns that Nigerians may spend more to get cure for simple ailments, if the Federal Government does not take drastic steps to tackle the alarming influx, circulation and distribution of fake drugs in the country by closing open drug markets.

 

According to Akintayo, the government can no longer afford to feign ignorance on the havoc that quackery is wreaking on the health of innocent and sick Nigerians.

 

The government’s inaction in tackling the fake drug menace, he alleges, is about to drive investors away from the country’s pharmaceutical sector.

 

Akintayo notes, “The government is aware of the channel through in which fake drugs are circulated and distributed nationwide and it must be ready to break this cartel. To do this, it must shut down the open drug markets,which are now more than 50 across the country.

 

“If it does not do this, what it means is that if an importer brings in N1bn worth of fake drugs this night, it will be all over the country by the next day through these open drug markets.

 

“The government must deal with this huge network because it is chasing investors who want to increase Nigerians’ access to quality medicines. No serious investor will bring in billions to compete with quacks and counterfeiters. It must put a stop to the peculiar pharmacy practice in Nigeria.”

 

 

     On the need for a conducive environment, the PSN boss tasks the Federal Government to tackle the epileptic power supply in the country to allow local pharmaceutical industries to compete with their counterparts in the production of quality but affordable medicines.

 

Akintayo notes that though five Nigerian pharmaceutical companies received the World Health Organisation certification for Good Manufacturing Practices last year, they would need financial and infrastructural support to survive.

 

“There is no way the price of a diesel-powered manufacturing plant can compete with the drugs from countries with constant electricity. This situation has now put Nigerian drug manufacturers at a disadvantage in the global market. The government must be serious about helping local production,” he adds.

 

Bring back our doctors

Statistics from the Federal Ministry of Health show that more than 5,000 Nigerian patients travel to India, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States for medical treatment every year.

 

The data also reveal that the country loses N78bn annually to foreign medical trips embarked upon by sick Nigerians.

 

According to the Chief Medical Director, Eko Hospital, Ikeja, Olusegun Odukoya, there is the need to check the revenue loss occasioned by medical tourism this year.

 

Odukoya, a UK-trained specialist in gynaecology, states that the Federal Government must, as a matter of urgency, set up a policy that will bring back Nigerian doctors, who are high flyers overseas.

 

The government, he says, must first provide the infrastructure; facilities as well as reasonable welfare packages to attract them back to the nation’s health institutions.

 

He adds, “The government must tackle medical tourism the way other countries have done in the past. India was able to get her doctors working in the UK and U.S back because its government gave them incentives to return home. It worked for the country. The boom in the health sector in India is such that patients come from the UK and US to undergo surgeries in the hands of Indian doctors today.

 

“Many Nigerian doctors are doing exceptionally well overseas. Nigeria must give incentives to her doctors to come back home to replicate the good work in our hospitals. But first, we must create the environment that will help them to accomplish this.”

 

Execute the National Health Act in 2015– NMA

Nigerians have yet to reap the benefits of the National Health Act. The Act became a reality last November.

 

To improve the ugly health indices that the country records in maternal and child health in every year, the President, Nigerian Medical Association, Dr. Kayode Obembe, says the Federal Government must ensure that it executes appropriately the tenets of the Act, which seeks to improve access to basic health care service.

 

According to Obembe, the Act provides direct funding for primary health care services from the Sovereign Wealth Fund and the onus lies on the governments at all levels to ensure that Nigerians, especially those at the grass roots benefit from the law.

 

Obembe states,“We must ensure that the one per cent of the Sovereign Wealth Fund of the nation, which is going to be used to fund this Act, gets to the primary health care level. This means that 50 per cent of the fund is to provide health insurance for the people, 20 per cent for drugs and vaccines, 15 per cent for the provision of laboratory facilities and equipment in PHCs, 10 per cent is for manpower development and five per cent for the provision of ambulances and other emergency services in PHCS.

 

“These funds must not be jettisoned at the tertiary, state or local government level. It must get to the grass roots.”

 

Put an end to strike – CMD

In order that the hospitals do not lose more revenue as they did last year, the acting Chief Medical Director, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi- Araba, Prof. Chris Bode, says that health practitioners must sheathe their swords and put an end to industrial dispute in the sector.

 

According to Bode, many tertiary hospitals lose huge Internally Generated Revenue due to incessant strikes embarked by their personnel.

 

He adds, “One day of strike costs the hospital and the patients much not to talk of industrial actions that last for weeks or months. We must realise that strike punishes the wrong person, which is the patient.

 

“A patient that breaks a leg from an accident and is unable to get treatment due to strike is the one that is suffering. Where is the productivity in a sector that is always on strike? I am appealing to all of us in the sector to nip the strike syndrome in the bud.”

 

BY BUKOLA ADEBAYO