The call for all to join forces in revamping Nigeria’s healthcare system has been brought to the fore following the coronavirus pandemic, which has exposed the country’s frail health sector.
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, is struggling hard to put its health sector in order, to meet up with the increasing infections rate of the deadly coronavirus which has so far infected more than 36,000 Nigerians, and over 780 deaths, according to data from the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control.
At current infection levels, Nigeria’s health sector is already overwhelmed as the number of persons seeking medical support for the virus far outweighs the country’s health infrastructure.
But for the global pandemic, that has forced advanced countries with sophisticated technology–who are much higher risk countries and are also battling to contain the spread of the virus—to shut their borders from international visitors, the traction to jointly fix the country’s health system may probably not hold much water as was the case in the past.
Nigeria is estimated to spend over $1 billion annually on treatment abroad popularly known as medical tourism, making the country’s health sector suffer years of neglect, a double whammy of low budgetary funding and a lack of private sector investment.
The situation seems a bit different now with all hands forced on deck to revitalise the country’s neglected health sector, which leaders like Clare Omatseye have donkey years been at the forefront of pushing for solutions.
Clare Omatseye, is the founder and managing director of the international award-winning company, JNC International Limited (JNCI) and the current President of the Healthcare Federation of Nigeria.
Omatseye is passionate about improving the quality and contributions of the Healthcare industry as she continues to offer her time to activities that promote the improvement of healthcare standards as well as Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Nigeria through the adoption of global best practices and building sustainable partnerships.
When it comes to issues around health care in Nigeria, Omatseye can be described as a titan who has for over 27 years of her career, given her time and lent her voice to seeing that the health of Nigerians is given priority in the country.
For Omatseye, her belief stems from the fact that only a healthy citizen can deliver the needed productivity that would in turn spur growth in an economy of over 200 million persons.
Whether it was through various public engagements or her various papers on Nigeria’s health care system, Omatseye has continuously put the government on their toes with her recommendations on how the challenges of the Nigerian health sector could be remedied
Sadly, not much attention was given by the government on her recommendations of thriving health sector through universal health coverage for all. In several public engagement and enlightenment forums, Omatseye has pushed for the achievement of universal health coverage for all.
For her, in a country as Nigeria, with a poverty rate of 40 percent and challenged with numerous infectious and communicable diseases, universal health care may be the better option in remedying the situation. With that, everyone would have health insurance and access to medical services with no one going bankrupt from medical fees.
In one of her statements, she described universal health coverage as a human right and every year, many people lose their lives unnecessarily because of the plethora of challenges confronting the nation’s health sector. She describes access to finance as a big issue as many people are paying out of pocket when they fall sick. This vicious cycle of poverty makes people make tough choices, she said.
But with greater access to mobile technology and data, which have outpaced other forms of communications infrastructure in Africa, Omatsaye reiterated the need for Nigeria to harness opportunities in disruptive and converging technologies to promote access to quality healthcare for patients.
In a 2017 digital conference organised by the Healthcare Federation of Nigeria (HFN), where she is president, Omatseye described the rise of mobile technology is a new game-changer in healthcare as it plays many roles in ensuring access to quality healthcare both for patients and the professional.
According to her, with mobile Health (m-Health), which is the use of mobile phones and other wireless technology in medical care; consumers get first-hand information about preventive health care services.
She described it as innovative healthcare, which enables the patients to have access to affordable healthcare, insurance, and other payment platforms. It can help even the health workers to be more empowered to take good medical decisions and help with diagnosis, data collection of patient, as it is attached to the mobile network they use, and also as a form of telemedicine for patient-doctor interaction without any barrier. “If harnessed, the 150 million mobile phone users would have access to healthcare,” she added.
And not just would it reduce the burden of improving the country’s health sector only on the government but also a shared responsibility between the private and public sector, according to Omatseye.
She explained that public-private partnership is one of the new methodologies governments around the world is using to improve their health sector, adding that the budget earmarked for the capital expenditure and infrastructure is not enough to push the countries health sector out of the doldrums.
“Healthcare in Nigeria can only be provided by the strategic partnership, we need the PPP to come together and create that dialogue, the private sector has a huge advantage in its efficiency and discipline for the public sector, which has patients, infrastructure to tap into and make a positive impact on the health sector,” she said.
Omatseye stressed that the country needs to be disruptive and think of new innovative ways of acquiring infrastructure and equipment to provide Nigerians with quality health care.
She said the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) require collaboration between both stakeholders to revamp its structure, which will lessen out-of-pocket payment that has impoverished most Nigerians.
She said healthcare insurance should be made mandatory to ensure every Nigerian has access to quality care, adding that with the enactment of Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF), and the support of the private sector to ensure its implementation, Nigeria would improve on her health indices.
Business and professional trajectory of Clare Omatseye
Omatseye is the founder and managing director of JNC International, a 15-year old Turnkey Medical Equipment Solutions company, which presently has 16 exclusive distributorship agreements with major Global medical equipment manufacturers. These include Toshiba Medical -Japan, Olympus- Japan, Elekta-Sweden, Medtronic –USA and the Getinge Group-Sweden to name a few.
JNC’s competences are noticeable throughout the healthcare space in Nigeria as they constantly look to improve and provide quality and affordable solutions through their innovative strategies for service delivery. In the span of her 27-year career, Omatseye has developed the required capabilities to effectively monitor and oversee installations/turnkey projects from the budding phase through execution to commissioning and post-commissioning. She is highly skilled in healthcare equipment consultancy, management of healthcare equipment Installation and turnkey projects, project planning, management and integration, project fund and resource sourcing and healthcare solutions consulting and advisory.
She graduated from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria with a Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy with honours and holds an MBA from Universidad De Navarra, (IESE) Barcelona. She founded JNCI in 1994 on the need to make a difference in the medical infrastructure landscape in Nigeria through the delivery of cutting edge medical diagnostic and interventional technology solutions and after-sales service. Over the years, she has grown JNCI into a proudly ‘Nigerian National Corporate’ company receiving several International and Nigerian Awards/recognitions such as the renowned Frost & Sullivan Award for Quality in Customer Service.
Clare started her career in 1990 with an internship stint at Sterling Health (now GlaxoSmithKline). She later moved to May & Baker Nigeria, where she had a progressive career in several job roles – Sales Representative, Product Manager (Vaccines), Business Development Manager (Pasteur Merieux Connaught) and National Sales Development Manager.
She left May & Baker Nigeria to become an Executive Director, Business Development with Aventis Pasteur Nigeria, (a French Multinational Pharmaceutical Company) where she spent another two and a half years, before taking on a new frontier position as the Country Manager, Nigeria for Huntleigh Healthcare UK Plc – a British multinational quoted on the NYSE. After a year, Clare decided to follow her passion to make a difference in the Healthcare arena and left to set up JNC International (JNCI).
She is a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), the Society of Quality in Healthcare in Nigeria (SQHN), Society for Corporate Governance (SCG), Paediatric Association of Nigeria (PAN) and Women in Successful Careers (WISCAR) NGO.
She sits on the Board for several organisations including Vaccipharm Limited, a cold chain vaccines and pharmaceutical distribution firm that she founded in 1999; Director, Society for Corporate Governance (SCG), as the first and only female director; Director, Advisory Board of the Entrepreneurial Development Centre (EDC) of the Lagos Business School. She is a Major Donor-Paul Harris Fellow and as an astute Rotarian, she chaired the 1st African Health Summit.
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