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LETTER TO EDITOR
Year : 2021 | Volume
: 10
| Issue : 3 | Page : 248-249
COVID-19 and health policy reformation in Nigeria
Abdullahi Tunde Aborode1, Kenneth Bitrus David2, Jegede Oluwatoyin Imisioluwa3, Ajagbe Abayomi Oyeyemi4, Abdulhammed Opeyemi Babatunde5
1 Healthy Africans Platform, Research and Development, Ibadan; ResearchHub Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria
2 Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria
3 Department of Human Kinetics and Health Education, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo, Nigeria
4 Department of Anatomy, College of Health Sciences, Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria
5 Department of Medicine and Surgery, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
Correspondence Address:
Dr. Abdulhammed Opeyemi Babatunde
Department of Medicine and Surgery, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan
Nigeria
Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
CheckDOI: 10.4103/ijhas.IJHAS_238_20
On December 30, 2019, a pneumonia-like disease emerged from Wuhan, China, which was discovered to have been caused by a novel strain of corona virus (SARS-CoV-2) on January 7, 2020.[1] This disease is known as the corona virus disease, popularly known as COVID-19.
The first case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was discovered on February 27, 2020 and a surge in the number of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases was recorded within the next few months in some African countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana among others.[2] This could be as a result of poor disease investigations, response strategies, and low testing capacities coupled with inadequacy in health facilities and services. This is evidence by the extremely low ratio of medical professional to population and number of bed spaces in hospitals in Nigeria compared to other developed countries. For instance, the United State has 290 hospital beds and 25.9 medical doctors per 10,000 population in contrast to Nigeria with 5 hospital beds and 4 medical doctors per 10,000 population.[1] This calls for the resuscitation of the country's healthcare system and policy reformation.
However, Nigeria has three sources of medical services which are public, private and voluntary agencies or missionary sources. In the chronological order, the public health system witnessed a surge in development after independence in 1960 with a rise in the numbers of physicians and bed capacity of over six-fold in the first 10 years.[3] Besides, between 1971 and 1980 was a geometric increase with the number of curative centers increase in twofold and training schools for staffs greater than tripled.[3] During this period, medical services in public hospitals were free coupled with food for individuals receiving medical care. Since 1984, the public health system started encountering different challenges ranging from insufficient drugs, chemicals, staff, and equipment, in which different government resorted to the introduction of user fees for the health delivery to mitigate these challenges.[3]
The endorsement of the Nigeria National Health Policy was made in 1988 with the agenda of attaining a level of health that will assist all Nigeria citizens to fulfill prolific lives socially and economically. However, the reformations of the National Health Policy fail to have a section for the creation of a national medical emergency and disaster management systems as regard its utmost imperative.[4] Hence, there is need for reformation of this policy to cater for medical emergency and improve healthcare delivery in the country to meet the international standard.
Health Policy Reformation in Nigeria needs to be tailored to include the following;
Institution of Telehealth with the application of electronic information and telecommunication technologies to help long-distance patient, healthcare, public health, and health administrations. Achievements have been recorded with this platform as regard assisting clinical services for patients and giving progressive education for healthcare workers[5]There must be a strict practice of regulatory procedures for drug research and development, with decision making kept under scrutiny to secure public interest and equal accessThere is need for the development of Anti-corruption policies have to be developed for healthcare systems and into health sector-based intervention designsGovernment and international agencies should channel funding and grants to improve best practice for health with strict adherence to health equity and standard healthcare delivery and servicesCivil society organizations should be actively involved in the important role of monitoring health outcomes and procurement systems, to track budget spending, and provide user feedbackPractitioners seeking to ensure and build integrity in the health sector require sector require a thorough understanding of the social forces that perpetuate the corrupt practicesThere is need for specific allocation of funds for public health challenges such as COVID-19 and should apply gender equality because men and women are usually affected differently.There is need to improve health insurance and financial coverage for the entire population for proper healthcare deliveryThere is need for efficient healthcare services through organizing different healthcare program and awarenessThere is need for integrating sufficient healthcare intelligence and surveillance systems into the healthcare system.Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
References
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