Dr Adewunmi Adeyemi Bero blasts Nigeria health sector on HWN SPOTLIGHT

As the country clocks 55 today, Medical Director of Roding Medical Centre and Consultant Obstetrician, Dr. Adewunmi Adeyemi-Bero, in an interview with Rebecca Ejifoma, said the health sector has not evolved, urging government at all levels to ensure that healthcare needs are met and given five to 10 percent of what is budgeted annually

Where is our health sector today as the nation clocks 55 years?
In the health sector, we haven’t evolved simply because the government hasn’t funded the sector. Government hasn’t subsidized the health sector or given incentives to private practitioners in the sector to discharge some of the government duties.
What I mean is that government, for instance, can make very low interest loans available to health institutions so that they can procure equipments and infrastructures at low interest rates, so that a lot of what is expected of the government by the populace can be achieved by the private health sector.

What is happening now is that the private health sector has to go to banks to procure loans at very exorbitant rates – 25 to 30 per cent. We don’t make profits like that. Consequently, that has contributed to stagnation in the private health sector segment of the country. And the government, too, has underfunded it.

What hasn’t the government done right?
By and large, if the government had ensured that the health sector received five to 10 percent of what is budgeted every year, then the sector would have more infrastructures and can reach out to all Nigerians, compared to what is available today.
With a new government in power, what is your advice as way forward?
Government has to understand that the country is about the people. What we achieve as a nation is achieved by people, not by machines. And you have to invest in the people. You have to ensure that the welfare of people is taken care of. Welfare needs are also health needs.

What is happening is that a lot of Nigerians are dying majorly in their prime. A lot of Nigerians, who have potentials and have a lot to offer, die unnecessarily. We should mitigate quite a lot of that by ensuring that health care needs of the people are met to a large extent.
However, we know that healthcare is not cheap. We should understand that in 20 years’ time, the President is a person, and that person is going to come from the population today.
But then, we have to also appreciate that no matter what, we must not see people as statistics. People will achieve what we can achieve as a nation. It is achieved by people.

How else should the government tackle this problem?
Apart from salaries and housing, welfare and health needs, we have to look after people. That is very important if we are going to achieve anything as a nation, if we are going to look back in a hundred years’ time when we celebrate our centenary and say, “Oh! We have achieved this much.”
It is going to be people, who would have achieved that. It’s going to be people, who will be.

Source: Thisdaylive, HWN Africa.