₦airaland Forum

Border closures mean the powerful can’t seek treatment abroad

Nigeria has 75,000 doctors, far below WHO recommendations

For decades, powerful Nigerians could ignore the government’s failure to invest adequately in the health-care system by seeking medical treatment abroad. The coronavirus pandemic means they can no longer escape.

Since Nigeria identified its first case in late February, President Muhammadu Buhari has responded by closing the borders and imposing a lockdown on two key cities and the state of Ogun, an industrial hub. Commercial flights and private jets have been grounded. Like most African countries, Nigeria is now largely cut off from the world.

The pandemic has forced much of Africa’s elite into a unique situation where it’s no longer possible to fly to the U.K., France or India to see a doctor, a practice that’s become commonplace even among the affluent middle class.

Buhari was widely criticized for spending more than five months in the U.K. in 2017 for an undisclosed ailment. Last year, Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo, recovered in Morocco from a stroke, while Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s former leader, died in a hospital in Singapore.

In Nigeria, the coronavirus has so far infected 174 people, including Abba Kyari, Buhari’s chief of staff, a man regarded as the second-most powerful in the country. Four out of 36 state governors and a son of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar have also tested positive. A former senior executive of the state oil company, Suleiman Achimugu, was the first Covid-19 fatality.

‘Total Collapse’
Dozens of senior public officials, including state governors and lawmakers, have gone into isolation. If they get sick, they will have to rely on a weak health system that is at risk of crumbling under the weight of a larger outbreak, according to Francis Faduyile, head of the Nigerian Medical Association, an umbrella group for doctors.

“The health system is not strong enough,” Faduyile said by phone from Lagos. “Over the years, it’s been denied normal funding and things are not where they’re supposed to be. If the burden of the coronavirus is added, it may be too heavy; it may actually cause a total collapse.”

Among Nigeria’s registered health professionals are 75,000 doctors, 180,709 nurses and 25,000 pharmacists, according to the health ministry. With 0.5% hospital beds per 1,000 people and a population of roughly 200 million, that’s far below thresholds set by the World Health Organization. Only five laboratories are able to test for the virus.

Health spending at around 5% of the budget in the past decade falls short of the African Union’s recommended minimum of 15% and has been mostly focused on recurrent spending, with little capital investment made over the years, according to BudgiT, a civil-society group that tracks government expenditure. A National Health Act that came into effect in 2015 and requires that 1% of government revenue is set aside for basic health care has yet to be implemented.

Even those numbers may not tell the whole story as officials of the medical association say about half of all registered doctors have emigrated to the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Australia and other parts of the world.

While Faduyile said there’s still time for the government to institute large-scale preventative measures, a wider coronavirus outbreak would leave everyone in Africa’s most populous country -- the rich, the poor and the middle class -- scrambling for service in poorly equipped hospitals.

“It’s going to be a lesson for those who think they can neglect the health system,” Faduyile said. “The highest of the government officials, some of them will be infected, and they’ll have no option but to get local treatment.”

It stems, instead, from their perception of coronavirus as a social leveler, which has forced their leaders to experience the health care sector they have abandoned for years since foreign medical tourism is no longer an option at least in the foreseeable future. In other words, they see coronavirus as the karmic payback to their leaders for their enduringly criminal neglect of the health of the nation.

In Nigeria, before coronavirus, when the rich were sick, they sought the best medical treatment abroad while the poor at home prayed for them to recover, but when the poor are sick, the rich tell them they are suffering divine punishment for their moral failings.

Why should ordinary people who are the victims of the callous ineptitude and lack of empathy of their leaders be invited to show compassion to their leaders now in their moment of helplessness? Why shouldn’t the poor celebrate that the rich are also crying and have nowhere to go but the same hospitals they allowed to rot for years?

MyVILLAGEpeople:
Where is Abba Kyari

Pls let's pray for his quick recovery.

sapientia:
One of Buhari's campaign point in 2015 was stopping medical tourism.

Yet,

He has only used UK hospitals.

Spent millions of dollars in medical tourism.

He failed to equip even the state hospital.

Yet Zombies still support and worship him

Dude jazz up wella

ZombiePUNISHER:
One dude in particular called rusher14
Praises this failure at any given opportunity

But what baffles me is that this dude... Claims he's intelligent

rusher14:
I claim to be intelligent?

Please show me where I made this claim?

ZombiePUNISHER:
You will also claim not to be a supporter of the dullard whose only achievement in office is to come on TV once in a while and show us that he's still alive...

sapientia:
One of Buhari's campaign point in 2015 was stopping medical tourism.

Yet,

He has only used UK hospitals.

Spent millions of dollars in medical tourism.

He failed to equip even the state hospital.

Yet Zombies still support and worship him

Dude jazz up wella

ZombiePUNISHER:
You will also claim not to be a supporter of the dullard whose only achievement in office is to come on TV once in a while and show us that he's still alive...

MyVILLAGEpeople:
Where is Abba Kyari

Pls let's pray for his quick recovery.

MyVILLAGEpeople:
Where is Abba Kyari

Pls let's pray for his quick recovery.