Addressing Nigeria's Healthcare Challenges: Problems, Opportunities, and Sustainable Solutions.

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Hello everyone,I am very happy to be a part of this contest which affords me the opportunity to address Nigeria's healthcare system.
Nigerians variously seek care from medical personnel and auxiliaries, community health workers, medicine vendors, marabouts and spiritual healers, traditional birth attendants, and other informal providers. The system relies on a mixture of quasi-tax-funding, fee-for-service, and minimal health insurance coverage.
Public health services in Nigeria are of poor quality and are not adequately available, accessible, and affordable to many people who need these services. The search for solutions has led to the idea of privatization and commercialization of public health services.
Nigeria

Healthcare delivery in Nigeria has experienced progressive deterioration as a result of under-investment by successive governments, to effectively solve several problems that have existed in the sector over many years. This directly impacts the productivity of citizens and Nigeria's economic growth by extension. As of February 2018, the country was ranked 187 out of 191 countries in the world, in assessing the level of compliance with Universal Health Coverage (UHC), as very little of the populace is health insured, whereas even government budget for health services is insignificant. Out-of-pocket payments for health causes households to incur huge expenditures. Private expenditure on health as a percentage of total health expenditure is 74.85%.source

PROBLEMS FACING NIGERIA'S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

•Inadequate funding and infrastructure

Nigeria allocates between 3.5% and 6.24% of her total budget to health care financing. The challenges of health care financing in Nigeria include: inefficiency of the health system across the country, limited institutional capacity, corruption, unstable and dwindling economic, and lack of political will.
The country's healthcare facilities, especially in rural areas, lack modern equipment, inadequate maintenance, and overcrowding. Many government hospitals are housed in dilapidated buildings lacking essential infrastructure, such as reliable electricity and clean water, which are critical for safe medical services.

•Shortage of healthcare professionals
Nigeria faces a severe shortage of skilled health workers. Nigeria has a density of only 1·83 skilled health workers per 1000 people, which falls far short of WHO's recommendation of 4·45 per 1000 people.

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•Poor access to healthcare in rural areas
Rural dweller's usually encounter obstacles to healthcare that restrict their ability to obtain the care they would like to have. To have entrance into healthcare means that healthcare services are available and can be obtained in a timely manner.

•High disease burden and poor health indicators
The load of disease measures the effect of living with sickness, bruise and dying prematurely. The summary measure 'disordered-adjusted life years', measures the years of health and welness of the people lost from death and illness.

•Weak health policies and implementation
Nigeria has several obstacles that restrict delivery of Public Health Care: some of the obstacles are internal conflict in parts of the country, crime, corruption, low political commitment to implementation of approved health policies, differences in remuneration between levels of care,

CHALLENGES FACING THE NIGERIA'S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

•Brain drain of medical professionals

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Migration of health workers 'Brain drain' is the change of location by health personnel in search of a better standard of living and life quality, higher salaries, access to advanced technology and more stable political conditions in different places worldwide.

•Limited health insurance coverage
Limited-benefit plans are limited health plans with more restricted and significantly lower benefit levels than major medical insurance. With the lower benefit levels and restrictions, the premiums are also lower than major medical insurance.
Depending on the state where they are being sold, limited plans can be referred to as mandate-light, bare-bones, mandate-free, minimum benefit, limited benefit, flexible benefit, and so on.

•Corruption and mismanagement of funds

Despite the growing global anxiety about, and efforts at protecting citizens from the COVID-19 pandemic and the high incidence of mortality from the virus, various studies have revealed that health sectors have encountered numerous challenges with respect to fraud prior to the pandemic. Globally, constructing consensus on drivers of the health sector has been advocated as an action to improve accountability and transparency, which are essential for the growth and capacity of a health system.source

•Lack of public awareness about preventive care
There is lack of public awareness about preventive care in that the effective awareness can decrease the risk of individuals experiencing a disease, condition or injury. It also assists people to effectively be in charge of the existing diseases or conditions, so their health does not worsen.

•Cultural and societal barriers to healthcare
Nigeria has several obstacles that restrict delivery of Public Health Care: internal conflict in parts of the country, crime and corruption, multiplicity of governmental and donor agencies, vertical programmes, low political commitment to implementation of approved health policies, differences in remuneration between levels of care.

SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES FACING NIGERIA'S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

•Increased government funding and investment in healthcare

Investments in Health
The 2024 federal budget for health witnessed a notable increase, with allocations aimed at strengthening primary healthcare, improving infrastructure, and expanding health insurance coverage from 16.7 million to 19.2 million under a year. ₦37 billion was also disbursed through the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) to designated primary health care facilities, doubling previous allocations. This trend is consistent with the 2025 budget with ₦2.48 trillion allocated, representing 5.18% of the national budget. This is a marked rise from the ₦1.23 trillion allocated in 2024, signaling the Federal Government’s commitment to healthcare delivery in the country.source

•Strengthening public-private partnerships
Public-private amalgamation is necessary to bridging healthcare gap in Nigeria. Moreover ,the private health sector in Nigeria look out on several confrontation with that impact its effectiveness and accessibility.

•Training and retaining healthcare professionals
The process of giving training and career guidance, encouraging feedback,addressing employee concerns and needs, offering adaptable work schedules and conditions, making employees feel appreciated, and recruiting the proficient healthcare workers.

•Implementing technology to improve healthcare delivery.

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Telemedicine, is a groundbreaking aspect of digital healthcare, which holds massive potential to revolutionize remote healthcare in Nigeria. Which gives its ability to bridge geographical gaps, improve healthcare access, and enhance patient outcomes, telemedicine is self-assured to transform the nation's healthcare landscape.

We can collectively achieve a healthy Nigeria by implementing the solutions I have proposed and I invite @newbreed and @etukakpan01 to participate in the contest.