Excellent healthcare indisputably ranks high on the list of important requirements for sustained human existence and various nations are prioritising the provision of adequate healthcare for their citizens. Infact, the United Nations succinctly captures this in its Sustainable Development Goal 3 with the objective to Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

Due to several factors however, Nigeria has consistently fallen behind on key indices for measuring progress on this all-important goal. For instance, 814 pregnant women lose their lives per 100,000 live births in the country with Nigeria (and India) accounting for about 34% of global maternal deaths. Also, about 57 babies are lost to the cold hands of death for 1,000 live births in the country. These are startling statistics and an urgent call for attention to the nation’s ailing healthcare sector.

Keen to contribute its quota towards addressing this worrying development, foremost banking institution -Fidelity Bank Plc -is providing succor for vulnerable members of the populace through its extensive, life-changing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) campaigns specifically in the area of upgrading healthcare centres in various communities in the past few months.

For instance, through its Fidelity Helping Hands Programme (FHHP), the tier two lender completed the renovation of the Ugwuike Health Centre - a primary health care centre in Iwollo, Ezeagu Local Government Area of Enugu State -in April 2021. The bank renovated the wards and other critical facilities at the health care centre in addition to donating items such as beds, delivery couches, drug preservation equipment, electrical fittings, amongst others.

A similar gesture was replicated at Onikan Health Centre in Lagos, where the Bank through the FHHP renovated the centre's maternity wards and other buildings by providing floor tiles, plumbing work, medical equipment and other items, as well as repairing old and faulty air conditioners in addition to building a nurse’s workstation.

Shedding light on the bank’s intervention in the health space, Chief Executive Officer, Mrs. Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe said, “There is no gainsaying our healthcare system is in urgent need of support as anyone who has had cause to visit any of our primary healthcare facilities would attest to this. While we are given to delivering impeccable financial performance, as a responsible corporate organisation we are also mindful of the wellbeing and health of our host communities. We have therefore taken it upon ourselves as an institution to help with improving the state of healthcare facilities through our Fidelity Helping Hands Programme in true reflection of the age-old adage that health is wealth.”

In a nation with a burgeoning youth population (at least 46 percent of Nigerians are children under the age of 15years), it is saddening to note that a large percentage of these children are homeless. Presently, over 8 million orphaned children exist in Nigeria, many of whom live in unsafe places such as beneath bridges, at railway stations and markets. A related statistics show that over 10 million Nigerian children are out of school despite being of legal school age. Orphanages offer some of these children the chance for a better life.

To show support for children living in such conditions, Fidelity Bank took its CSR initiatives a step further with a celebration of children at the Heritage Home Orphanage in Lagos in May 2021. At the event, which will forever be etched in the children's positive memories, inductees of the bank’s Experienced Hire programme donated several food items and domestic materials to assist the orphanage in caring for them.

To address the challenges facing the nation’s health sector, well-meaning organisations will need to play an active role in supporting the sector through compassionate interventions as it is being demonstrated by Fidelity Bank. Only then will the terrifying infant and maternal mortality statistics mentioned at the beginning of this article become a thing of the past.