Nigeria’s health care indices among world’s poorest — NMA

The President, Nigerian Medical Association, Dr. Kayode Obembe, has said Nigeria’s health care indices remain among the poorest in the world.

He said life expectancy in the country was 54 years, adding that 630 pregnant women died in every 100,000 births.

According to him, 88 infants die in every 1,000 births in Nigeria.

Obembe said this on Saturday during the NMA’s National Executive Council meeting in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

The NMA President said although the National Health Act had reached implementation stage, there were two major obstacles to the law, which should be remedied.

He identified these as counterpart funding and funds being paid into state accounts.

Obembe stated that with these two obstacles, it was clear that the grass-roots population could muster enough counterpart funding to access the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

He added that state governments might also divert the funds to other areas that might not directly be related to health.

Obembe stated, “Emergency service has been provided for in the National Health Act and hospitals have to be mapped out with facilities made available to handle emergencies, particularly road traffic accidents, which have now reached epidemic proportions in Nigeria.

“It is pertinent to note that in order to achieve the universal health coverage, the whole country should be mapped out into ‘health blocks’ containing roughly 5,000 enrollees and managed by a medical practitioner, and where this is not available, a community health extension worker.

“Referral pathway would be established ab initio to transfer the patient to secondary and tertiary level health care facilities as the case may be.”