Sonny Folorunso Kuku, a prominent physician and esteemed healthcare administrator, has urged the government to ensure the effective functioning of the health insurance system, noting its critical role in enabling Nigerians to access the innovative and advanced healthcare services being driven by private sector investment.
Kuku spoke during the official launch of the ‘Frontline Hospitals in Nigeria’ report, authored by Femi Olugbile, former permanent secretary of the Lagos State Ministry of Health, in collaboration with BusinessDay.
The health veteran said the book highlights the incredible investment in mono-specialist and multi-specialists’ hospitals which need a reliable funding structure to survive and maintain quality care.
“For as long as we are getting 70 to 80 percent of the population paying out-of-pocket, nobody will be able to afford what is going on,” Kuku said.
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“A lot of beautiful things are happening but the only way that would survive is healthcare financing. Until health insurance becomes compulsory or another way which I don’t think will happen in Nigeria is having a percentage of the budget go into care like the NHS in England.”
The report mirrored the various development in healthcare facilities across Nigeria, highlighting their strengths and potential to transform the healthcare system.
The months-long research captured outstanding tertiary hospitals both in the public and private sector, high-performing secondary health facilities and even primary healthcare centres.
Highlighting the discoveries, Olugbile, the distinguished author said some facilities with high personnel, equipment and resources got very little traffic.
There are units with the competence to do 100 cases of unique treatments weekly but get to do five.
“We need to capture these low hanging fruits so that the high-flyers that we have can fly with confidence. Technically, Nigeria now has a mandatory insurance policy. How to implement that and actually translate it into figure of people who are actually registered is the issue. Rwanda has 90 percent population covered by health insurance. If we got anywhere near those numbers, these hospitals we are celebrating will function better,” Olugbile said.
Kemi Ogunyemi, special adviser to the Lagos State Governor on health said the state is exploring ways to enforce the mandatory health insurance policy by tying it to access to public service such land documentation.
She said the idea is to ensure people get affordable and assessable health but however noted that the government needs public support to achieve its goal.
She also noted that specialised care is lacking in Nigeria – an area where investors are gradually developing.
“Health is business. Without money you can’t do anything, whether it is infrastructure or paying staff. We recognize that and that is why the government does a lot of public private partnership. The challenge we have at hand is to create the conducive environment,” Ogunyemi said.
Frank Aigbghun, publisher, BusinessDay Media Ltd. urged the government to not only talk about the issues but strive to redirect considerable number of resources to fast-track the work that is already going on through policies.
He described the report as a recognition of the great things happening through the facilities being opened, upgraded and the magnitude of funding going into healthcare.
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“One of the reasons we are doing this is to begin to catalyse the work required to beam more light on those things that are happening in the health sector and aid resources deployment to reflect our priorities. I believe the health sector needs more patient capital than it is getting at the moment,” he said.
Walking through the trajectory of hospital developments in the last few years, Kuku explained that various hospitals have sprouted including St. Nicholas which started as a niche hospital for the elite.
“It was fashionable then to go St. Nicholas and the hospital didn’t need to do much because the general and teaching hospitals were doing well.
Then problem started when the teaching hospitals started going down and St. Nicholas had to up their game. Some Tsunami also occurred. Great teachers moved into private sector, into specialist practice.
Then came Eko Hospital. This started as an offshoot of the government driving specialist from teaching hospitals and people.”
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