Although I am not a stranger to the fact that Nigeria is in bad shape, I got the rudest confirmation yet of this truth today, after experiencing first hand what it meant to have a patient in one's hands, in an emergency situation, and yet be made to wait in the merciless environment we call hospitals in Nigeria today, endlessly in a queue for hours, just to have a doctor attend to one...

It was like a scene from a war movie inwhich wounded soldiers were being evacuated to make shift hospital tents, patients were not allowed into the hospital (Lasuth, Ikeja), cars and ambulances lined the entrance to the emergency section, and we were sorrounded by poorly trained hospital personnel (one of which even got into a quarrel with the family member of a patient when, in response to the frustration of the man who had a dying patient, he asked the man to Bleep off) who didn't seem to care how critical the illness of most patients might be, so much so that a patient, a woman who only moments before was talking with her children, even died suddenly before our eyes.

In summary, I came to terms with how urgently who ever it is that is in control of Nigeria today, needed to declare a state of emergency on the health sector. Nigerian leaders should see this as an act of service, not just for Nigerians, but for themselves as well.

The day before had been hectic, from huge traffic to a car (though brand new) that suddenly developed a fault. And the patient was in pain and was having laboured breathing...After running all kinds of test costing almost 200k, after visiting about five hospitals, from Saint Ives in Ikeja through Eko Hospital to LASUTH, all of them in Nigeria's commercial capital, we were given all manner of reasons to turn us back, from "we only offer skeletal services" to "we have no bed spaces" and then to confirm that, we were shown some sick patients who were made to sleep on the bare floor...how can anyone, not to talk of doctors for that matter, turn away a sick patients who had difficulty breathing (please take note that it is not Covid 19, from the tests conducted we knew what the issue is) and was in pain? What sort of hospital does that?

Frustrated, I had to engage one of the doctors and some of the things I learnt shocked me.

Do you know that for a country of over 200 million people like Nigeria there are only 72,000 registered doctors in the country today? All the others have emigrated and continue to make plans to emigrate abraod in search of better opportunities because of poor working conditions here...and do you know that the rot in our health sector is due, mainly to massive corruption and sadly too, that it is still business as usual for those in charge of Nigeria today?

Our hospitals remain grossly inadequate, poorly equipped and underfunded. Today, for every 6,000 Nigerian patients, it is one doctor who attends to them in hospitals that are mere glorified First Aid centres. Yet, the World Health Organisation recommends a doctor to, at most 600 patients for every country, and there are even countries with 1 to, say, 20 or 30 patients.

Our primary health care system has collapsed. Even doctors who are patriotic enough to stay are not motivated, just name it, the problems are endless.

Despite a gross lack of basic amenities like potable water and electricity, medical supplies and equipments, we continue to see budgetary allocation by the Federal Government running into billions, where have all the funds gone?

Today, Nigerians who can afford to, escape overseas for medical tourism, including President Muhammadu Buhari, who is the biggest medical tourist from Nigeria until Covid 19 thought him how to stay glued to Aso Rock from where he now precides over the affairs of Nigeria.

As president, his vantage position saddles him with the task of providing a radical solution to this problem, yet, in the last 6 years, he has shown he prefers foreign hospitals and looking the other way as corruption ravages our health sector.

We don't need to go far memory lane too, to remember how, bringing late President Umaru Yar’Adua home nearly dead from a Saudi Arabia hospital in 2010, exposed the sordid and depressing state of our health sector. Covid 19 too has also confirmed what we already know about our health sector, yet our leaders seem helpless or choose inaction.

Nigerian universities have been training doctors for years, where have all the doctors gone? 72,000 doctors for a population of over 200 million people!

And because of this extreme shortage of doctors, nurses and quacks today set up thier own hospitals and yet continue to get massive patronage...it is on record that in this same country, a Chief of Staff to the president and a former governor both died because they could not be flown abraod for treatment. The list of public officials who run off abraod for treatment daily is endless.

And everyday, countless ordninary Nigerians die from avoidable causes, the government set up NHIS, corrupt politicans hijacked the program, and today, do not cease to embezzle monies deducted from Nigerian workers for NHIS, yet, we all carry on as if all is well...instead of declaring a state of emergency on the health sector, our senators are fighting NDDC, and Keyamo over issues that bothers on self interest and money...even the supposed head of our anti corruption agency, EFCC is in the dock for corruption himself...

When will Nigerians wake up and demand a nation that we all can be proud of? Is it when we are all dead?

GOD help US...

Hmmmm

What a gangatuan gaga.

Our Health Sector is almost moribund. Until medical tourism ends or reduced, especially by politicians, our Health Sector will remain this way.

I like the statistics you gave above.
Meanwhile, almost half of those 72,000 registered doctors are no longer in Nigeria or practising(even Saraki and Ngige are part of the number), as people travel out almost every day.
Truly, the government has failed woefully to invest in and revive the health sector.
But there's need for individuals, groups, associations, etc, to get involved and invest massively in that sectors.
Where are our millionaires and billionaires?
Most of the well equipped hospitals abroad are privately owned.
And the owners are not necessarily doctors or other healthcare professionals.
The government can then play the role of subsidising it or providing insurance services.
For instance, government owned hospitals in India are almost as poorly equipped as our own in Nigeria, but there's massive investment in their private health sector.
Gigantic privately owned Indian hospitals are scattered all over the middle east.
The hospitals Nigerians patronize over there are privately owned, and that's why they pay hugely in terms of bills.
Our own problem is unique in that both the government and the citizens have failed to invest in the sector and there's no hope anywhere.
Modern medicine is capital intensive and technology driven, and what you put in is what you get.
That's what we're seeing in Nigeria today.

I got my university degree from India back in 2008-09 Lived there a long time.
Once injured my leg and admitted in a small rural government hospital near to dairy technology institute, Care and facilities they had in that small hospital, I can not dream of such free medical treatment in our big hospitals in this continent.

Forget about small operation on my leg, Medicines they give over there are absolutely free. Not to mention food as well.

We can just dream such thing in this continent, our real problem is , we have nothing but too much fake ego.

Too many Keyboard Visitors and experts, who think by reading few blogs and few google searches they know everything.

I suggest dont rely on what i said, ask anyone returning from India about availability healthcare for their Citizens, Cost of Medicines, test etc

ChybuzzDD:
I like the statistics you gave above.
Meanwhile, almost half of those 72,000 registered doctors are no longer in Nigeria or practising(even Saraki and Ngige are part of the number), as people travel out almost every day.
Truly, the government has failed woefully to invest in and revive the health sector.
But there's need for individuals, groups, associations, etc, to get involved and invest massively in that sectors.
Where are our millionaires and billionaires?
Most of the well equipped hospitals abroad are privately owned.
And the owners are not necessarily doctors or other healthcare professionals.
The government can then play the role of subsidising it or providing insurance services.
For instance, government owned hospitals in India are almost as poorly equipped as our own in Nigeria, but there's massive investment in their private health sector.
Gigantic privately owned Indian hospitals are scattered all over the middle east.
The hospitals Nigerians patronize over there are privately owned, and that's why they pay hugely in terms of bills.
Our own problem is unique in that both the government and the citizens have failed to invest in the sector and there's no hope anywhere.
Modern medicine is capital intensive and technology driven, and what you put in is what you get.
That's what we're seeing in Nigeria today.

rationalhuman:
I got my university degree from India back in 2008-09 Lived there a long time.
Once injured my leg and admitted in a small rural government hospital near to dairy technology institute, Care and facilities they had in that small hospital, I can not dream of such free medical treatment in our big hospitals in this continent.

Forget about small operation on my leg, Medicines they give over there are absolutely free. Not to mention food as well.

We can just dream such thing in this continent, our real problem is , we have nothing but too much fake ego.

Too many Keyboard Visitors and experts, who think by reading few blogs and few google searches they know everything.

I suggest dont rely on what i said, ask anyone returning from India about availability healthcare for their Citizens, Cost of Medicines, test etc

I don't know the point you're trying to make.
For your information, I'm not a keyboard expert searching and getting information from Google; I'm a surgeon working in the middle east, and I have first hand information of what most countries' healthcare sectors in Asia look like.
I've also worked and still working with many indian doctors.
You might have had a one-off experience in their government clinic. A few of them may be properly equipped, but majority are not.
My position still remains that most of their big, well equipped hospitals that are oing well and are involved in medical tourism are privately owned.
And their citizens who are rich patronize those hospitals, while their millions of poor citizens patronize mainly the poorly equipped government hospitals.
A student can't know more than I do about the healthcare of some countries.
My main point is that there is need for massive investment in the private healthcare sector, as government has persistently failed, and I didn't see you arguing along that line.

rationalhuman:
I got my university degree from India back in 2008-09 Lived there a long time.
Once injured my leg and admitted in a small rural government hospital near to dairy technology institute, Care and facilities they had in that small hospital, I can not dream of such free medical treatment in our big hospitals in this continent.

Forget about small operation on my leg, Medicines they give over there are absolutely free. Not to mention food as well.

We can just dream such thing in this continent, our real problem is , we have nothing but too much fake ego.

Too many Keyboard Visitors and experts, who think by reading few blogs and few google searches they know everything.

I suggest dont rely on what i said, ask anyone returning from India about availability healthcare for their Citizens, Cost of Medicines, test etc

Still on your matter, as you don't seem to understand the reasons for some of the things you saw, which still lend credence to my call for non-governmental investment.

India has numerous pharmaceutical companies that are producing genuine drugs and disposable hospital materials for them.
These companies are owned by private individuals and groups who invested heavily in them.
Government only provides regulatory services.
They also have privstely owned companies that produce low-cost hospital equipment and test kits.
How many functional pharmaceutical companies do we have in Nigeria?
With these, you can see why these things could be cheaper there.
A country that has no company producing little things like gloves, syringes, facemasks, etc, cannot have a good healthcare system.
There's no country where governments do all these things. They only regulate.
Our people are not investing, but are stashing their money in foreign banks.

Agreed what you have said.

ChybuzzDD:


Still on your matter, as you don't seem to understand the reasons for some of the things you saw, which still lend credence to my call for non-governmental investment.

India has numerous pharmaceutical companies that are producing genuine drugs and disposable hospital materials for them.
These companies are owned by private individuals and groups who invested heavily in them.
Government only provides regulatory services.
They also have privstely owned companies that produce low-cost hospital equipment and test kits.
How many functional pharmaceutical companies do we have in Nigeria?
With these, you can see why these things could be cheaper there.
A country that has no company producing little things like gloves, syringes, facemasks, etc, cannot have a good healthcare system.
There's no country where governments do all these things. They only regulate.
Our people are not investing, but are stashing their money in foreign banks.

thankless:
Although I am not a stranger to the fact that Nigeria is in bad shape, I got the rudest confirmation yet of this truth today, after experiencing first hand what it meant to have a patient in one's hands, in an emergency situation, and yet be made to wait in the merciless environment we call hospitals in Nigeria today, endlessly in a queue for hours, just to have a doctor attend to one...

It was like a scene from a war movie inwhich wounded soldiers were being evacuated to make shift hospital tents, patients were not allowed into the hospital (Lasuth, Ikeja), cars and ambulances lined the entrance to the emergency section, and we were sorrounded by poorly trained hospital personnel (one of which even got into a quarrel with the family member of a patient when, in response to the frustration of the man who had a dying patient, he asked the man to Bleep off) who didn't seem to care how critical the illness of most patients might be, so much so that a patient, a woman who only moments before was talking with her children, even died suddenly before our eyes.

In summary, I came to terms with how urgently who ever it is that is in control of Nigeria today, needed to declare a state of emergency on the health sector. Nigerian leaders should see this as an act of service, not just for Nigerians, but for themselves as well.

The day before had been hectic, from huge traffic to a car (though brand new) that suddenly developed a fault. And the patient was in pain and was having laboured breathing...After running all kinds of test costing almost 200k, after visiting about five hospitals, from Saint Ives in Ikeja through Eko Hospital to LASUTH, all of them in Nigeria's commercial capital, we were given all manner of reasons to turn us back, from "we only offer skeletal services" to "we have no bed spaces" and then to confirm that, we were shown some sick patients who were made to sleep on the bare floor...how can anyone, not to talk of doctors for that matter, turn away a sick patients who had difficulty breathing (please take note that it is not Covid 19, from the tests conducted we knew what the issue is) and was in pain? What sort of hospital does that?

Frustrated, I had to engage one of the doctors and some of the things I learnt shocked me.

Do you know that for a country of over 200 million people like Nigeria there are only 72,000 registered doctors in the country today? All the others have emigrated and continue to make plans to emigrate abraod in search of better opportunities because of poor working conditions here...and do you know that the rot in our health sector is due, mainly to massive corruption and sadly too, that it is still business as usual for those in charge of Nigeria today?

Our hospitals remain grossly inadequate, poorly equipped and underfunded. Today, for every 6,000 Nigerian patients, it is one doctor who attends to them in hospitals that are mere glorified First Aid centres. Yet, the World Health Organisation recommends a doctor to, at most 600 patients for every country, and there are even countries with 1 to, say, 20 or 30 patients.

Our primary health care system has collapsed. Even doctors who are patriotic enough to stay are not motivated, just name it, the problems are endless.

Despite a gross lack of basic amenities like potable water and electricity, medical supplies and equipments, we continue to see budgetary allocation by the Federal Government running into billions, where have all the funds gone?

Today, Nigerians who can afford to, escape overseas for medical tourism, including President Muhammadu Buhari, who is the biggest medical tourist from Nigeria until Covid 19 thought him how to stay glued to Aso Rock from where he now precides over the affairs of Nigeria.

As president, his vantage position saddles him with the task of providing a radical solution to this problem, yet, in the last 6 years, he has shown he prefers foreign hospitals and looking the other way as corruption ravages our health sector.

We don't need to go far memory lane too, to remember how, bringing late President Umaru Yar’Adua home nearly dead from a Saudi Arabia hospital in 2010, exposed the sordid and depressing state of our health sector. Covid 19 too has also confirmed what we already know about our health sector, yet our leaders seem helpless or choose inaction.

Nigerian universities have been training doctors for years, where have all the doctors gone? 72,000 doctors for a population of over 200 million people!

And because of this extreme shortage of doctors, nurses and quacks today set up thier own hospitals and yet continue to get massive patronage...it is on record that in this same country, a Chief of Staff to the president and a former governor both died because they could not be flown abraod for treatment. The list of public officials who run off abraod for treatment daily is endless.

And everyday, countless ordninary Nigerians die from avoidable causes, the government set up NHIS, corrupt politicans hijacked the program, and today, do not cease to embezzle monies deducted from Nigerian workers for NHIS, yet, we all carry on as if all is well...instead of declaring a state of emergency on the health sector, our senators are fighting NDDC, and Keyamo over issues that bothers on self interest and money...even the supposed head of our anti corruption agency, EFCC is in the dock for corruption himself...

When will Nigerians wake up and demand a nation that we all can be proud of? Is it when we are all dead?

GOD help US...

72000 is on the register, like 30000 have left nigeria, that leaves like 52000 who are also planning to leave as in seen in the frontpage.

So the reality is that the numbers are grimmer than that. This shortage has created an opening for quacks who step in to fufill a need for healthcare and earn cash on the side.

In the north, it's worse, in some states, they don't have up to 300 doctors, so what happens in remote areas?.

No doctor will want to go to a backwater village to earn peanuts and suffer. But some areas are now using NYSC as a way to exploit doctors who are unfortunate to be posted to remote areas.

It will come to a time where young doctors will choose not to go for service, especially those who plan to relocate abroad.

ChybuzzDD:
I like the statistics you gave above.
Meanwhile, almost half of those 72,000 registered doctors are no longer in Nigeria or practising(even Saraki and Ngige are part of the number), as people travel out almost every day.
Truly, the government has failed woefully to invest in and revive the health sector.
But there's need for individuals, groups, associations, etc, to get involved and invest massively in that sectors.
Where are our millionaires and billionaires?
Most of the well equipped hospitals abroad are privately owned.
And the owners are not necessarily doctors or other healthcare professionals.
The government can then play the role of subsidising it or providing insurance services.
For instance, government owned hospitals in India are almost as poorly equipped as our own in Nigeria, but there's massive investment in their private health sector.
Gigantic privately owned Indian hospitals are scattered all over the middle east.
The hospitals Nigerians patronize over there are privately owned, and that's why they pay hugely in terms of bills.
Our own problem is unique in that both the government and the citizens have failed to invest in the sector and there's no hope anywhere.
Modern medicine is capital intensive and technology driven, and what you put in is what you get.
That's what we're seeing in Nigeria today.

Exactly, we reap what we sow

thankless:
Although I am not a stranger to the fact that Nigeria is in bad shape, I got the rudest confirmation yet of this truth today, after experiencing first hand what it meant to have a patient in one's hands, in an emergency situation, and yet be made to wait in the merciless environment we call hospitals in Nigeria today, endlessly in a queue for hours, just to have a doctor attend to one...

It was like a scene from a war movie inwhich wounded soldiers were being evacuated to make shift hospital tents, patients were not allowed into the hospital (Lasuth, Ikeja), cars and ambulances lined the entrance to the emergency section, and we were sorrounded by poorly trained hospital personnel (one of which even got into a quarrel with the family member of a patient when, in response to the frustration of the man who had a dying patient, he asked the man to Bleep off) who didn't seem to care how critical the illness of most patients might be, so much so that a patient, a woman who only moments before was talking with her children, even died suddenly before our eyes.

In summary, I came to terms with how urgently who ever it is that is in control of Nigeria today, needed to declare a state of emergency on the health sector. Nigerian leaders should see this as an act of service, not just for Nigerians, but for themselves as well.

The day before had been hectic, from huge traffic to a car (though brand new) that suddenly developed a fault. And the patient was in pain and was having laboured breathing...After running all kinds of test costing almost 200k, after visiting about five hospitals, from Saint Ives in Ikeja through Eko Hospital to LASUTH, all of them in Nigeria's commercial capital, we were given all manner of reasons to turn us back, from "we only offer skeletal services" to "we have no bed spaces" and then to confirm that, we were shown some sick patients who were made to sleep on the bare floor...how can anyone, not to talk of doctors for that matter, turn away a sick patients who had difficulty breathing (please take note that it is not Covid 19, from the tests conducted we knew what the issue is) and was in pain? What sort of hospital does that?

Frustrated, I had to engage one of the doctors and some of the things I learnt shocked me.

Do you know that for a country of over 200 million people like Nigeria there are only 72,000 registered doctors in the country today? All the others have emigrated and continue to make plans to emigrate abraod in search of better opportunities because of poor working conditions here...and do you know that the rot in our health sector is due, mainly to massive corruption and sadly too, that it is still business as usual for those in charge of Nigeria today?

Our hospitals remain grossly inadequate, poorly equipped and underfunded. Today, for every 6,000 Nigerian patients, it is one doctor who attends to them in hospitals that are mere glorified First Aid centres. Yet, the World Health Organisation recommends a doctor to, at most 600 patients for every country, and there are even countries with 1 to, say, 20 or 30 patients.

Our primary health care system has collapsed. Even doctors who are patriotic enough to stay are not motivated, just name it, the problems are endless.

Despite a gross lack of basic amenities like potable water and electricity, medical supplies and equipments, we continue to see budgetary allocation by the Federal Government running into billions, where have all the funds gone?

Today, Nigerians who can afford to, escape overseas for medical tourism, including President Muhammadu Buhari, who is the biggest medical tourist from Nigeria until Covid 19 thought him how to stay glued to Aso Rock from where he now precides over the affairs of Nigeria.

As president, his vantage position saddles him with the task of providing a radical solution to this problem, yet, in the last 6 years, he has shown he prefers foreign hospitals and looking the other way as corruption ravages our health sector.

We don't need to go far memory lane too, to remember how, bringing late President Umaru Yar’Adua home nearly dead from a Saudi Arabia hospital in 2010, exposed the sordid and depressing state of our health sector. Covid 19 too has also confirmed what we already know about our health sector, yet our leaders seem helpless or choose inaction.

Nigerian universities have been training doctors for years, where have all the doctors gone? 72,000 doctors for a population of over 200 million people!

And because of this extreme shortage of doctors, nurses and quacks today set up thier own hospitals and yet continue to get massive patronage...it is on record that in this same country, a Chief of Staff to the president and a former governor both died because they could not be flown abraod for treatment. The list of public officials who run off abraod for treatment daily is endless.

And everyday, countless ordninary Nigerians die from avoidable causes, the government set up NHIS, corrupt politicans hijacked the program, and today, do not cease to embezzle monies deducted from Nigerian workers for NHIS, yet, we all carry on as if all is well...instead of declaring a state of emergency on the health sector, our senators are fighting NDDC, and Keyamo over issues that bothers on self interest and money...even the supposed head of our anti corruption agency, EFCC is in the dock for corruption himself...

When will Nigerians wake up and demand a nation that we all can be proud of? Is it when we are all dead?

GOD help US...

Careful with what Yu say chief..

There future victims that come on line

Just to see if Yu attacked bruwari

These are ppo that wud frown at ur post

And say not my head not my children

They will claim if not 4 bruwari Nigeria wud collapse long ago,

They do dis with unconditional love...

To the extent that I suspect their brains is

Somehow mixed with sand and red oil

And nah this king of ppo go sow fresh native go exhibit the rich culture for burial like say naw wedding

I was once rejected in an hospital

House honestly almost bled out!!!

Since then I see our health sector as a

Regulator for reducing, downsizing and an

Affiliate of Nigerian population commission...

They say everybody is a gangstar till u get punched in the face...

God let no body ever go through lying down

And waiting patiently as life goes out like

Making international call to complain how

Bruwari dey straff a whole Nigerian lives

Like under age pgucci with just N20 balance














In Jesus name

Nigeria is not working.

A restructuring may be a way to go.