Friday, 29 March, 2024
HomeWeekly RoundupNigerian doctors reduced to surgery by candlelight

Nigerian doctors reduced to surgery by candlelight

Some doctors in Nigeria use candlelight to perform operations due to the dearth of funding for the sector, a medical practitioner told a Senate panel during a public hearing on the 2017 budget.

Business Day quotes Benjamin Anyele, chair, Health Sector Reform Coalition, as saying: “It has gotten so bad that Nigerians are running mental without knowing, nurses use candlelight to assist in carrying out operations.” Arguing for increased funding for the health sector, Anyele decried the dearth of funding for primary healthcare centres in Nigeria, saying “it portends grave danger for national development.”

The report says Nigeria’s 2017 budget allocated N252.87bn ($79.77bn) for recurrent and N51bn ($160.8m) capital expenditure representing a mere 4.1% of the entire budget. This allocation falls short of the 15% agreed by AU countries in the 2001 Abuja Health declaration.

The report says health sector workers fear that critical areas such as routine immunisation, family planning, ending childhood killer diseases, nutrition, child and maternal health funded at primary health centres in rural areas may see a decline.

“The budget proposals are too low to achieve any appreciable impact in the health sector, government is still not paying adequate attention to primary healthcare which is what the country needs,” Obitade Obimakinde, a medical practitioner at Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado Ekiti, is quoted as saying. More attention should have been paid to improving access to primary healthcare, as it is the closest to the poor and vulnerable, he said. Prior to the commencement of the public hearing on the budget, segments of health sector pressure groups took to social media urging the federal government to increase health sector funding.

The report says Nigeria, with a population of over 170m, has only 40,000 registered doctors. Out of this, 19,000 have left to practise overseas. Among those at home, 70% practise in the urban areas.

The ideal doctor/patient ratio should be 1:600, but in Nigeria, there are over 50,000 people to one doctor and 1,066 for one nurse.

The report says Nigeria ranks number one in tuberculosis infection but devoted only N541m ($1.706m) in the 2017 budget, instead of N2bn ($6.3m) required to contain it, Anyele said. The Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Investment Authority (NSWIA) said 30,000 Nigerians spent $1bn on medical tourism in 2014.

Doyin Odubanjo, a public health specialist, said paying attention to primary healthcare centres would cut down the huge medical costs. “(The) majority of the burden of diseases can be taken care of at the primary care level. So, the government should be looking at diseases prevention and treatment at the primary health level. Government needs to look at what majority of people will need to combat basic disease like malaria and other infections. We already have some specialty centres, there is need to upgrade and equip them so they handle more complicated cases and for that you need the right equipment,” Odubanjo said.

The report says Anyele called for a more committed action from government, saying that actions like waiting 10 years to pass the National Health Act only add to the trouble in the sector.

[link url="https://www.businessdayonline.com/nigerian-doctors-use-candlelight-perform-operations-2/"]Business Day report[/link]

MedicalBrief — our free weekly e-newsletter

We'd appreciate as much information as possible, however only an email address is required.