Adaeze is the Country Director Planning, Research and Statistics with Nigeria’s National Blood Service Commission working with health and development policymakers at ministerial and sub-ministerial levels, to create blood policies that reduce maternal mortality and reduce the transfer of infections such as HIV through unsafe blood transfusions, as well as improving the distribution of safely screened blood to hard-to-reach areas especially in times of terror and conflict. With a strong interest in the potential of technology to scale healthcare solutions in the public sector, she also advises health-tech entrepreneurs on viability, scalability and the impact of policy on health technology.
The Federal Government established the National Blood Service Commission to replace the National Blood Transfusion Service to coordinate, regulate and ensure the provision of safe, quality blood transfusion services.
Adaeze has a strong commitment to enabling and providing respectful, accessible, affordable comprehensive and continuous care at the primary and secondary care levels from a community health perspective.
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She is keenly interested in research and analysis focused on health systems policy, financing and strengthening; maternal, new-born, child and adolescent health; mental health and tropical infectious diseases and has authored over 300 health policy briefs.
Oreh is also a Family Physician, Public Policy Specialist, Rural and Global Health & Development Advocate and 2019 Aspen New Voices Fellow with over 17 years’ experience in health management in both public and private health care organisations in Nigeria.
She is also the Founder & CEO of Kaibeya Care Foundation Africa, a non-profit organisation established to help break the cycle of poverty and lack of access to respectful health care and quality education with the aim of fostering a sense of physical, social and emotional wellbeing, confidence and empowerment.
As a young medical doctor and new mother, Adaeze’s world changed when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, in 2005. Though it was a financially demanding and medically risky experience, she fought through and she is till date, cancer free. “I have time and time again seen patients and their families literally break down under the weight of a diagnosis. Not necessarily because of the illness in itself, but often because they saw the health care bills as a death sentence,” she says. Oreh’s desire is to relentlessly advocate for more healthcare spending and more healthcare decision-making at the local level.
