Indias plan to build hospitals in Nigeria Our Reporter Wednesday, July 9, 2014 Indias plan to build hospitals in Nigeria advertisement AdChoices The Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ambassador Ghanashyam Rangaiah, recently disclosed that India is planning to establish hospitals across the six geopolitical zones of the country. The gesture, he explained, was to make Indias medical facilities accessible and affordable to Nigerians in various communities and stop the high cost of travelling and medical expenses paid by Nigerians in India. This plan by India must have been informed by the exodus of Nigerians to the Asian country for medical treatment, the parlous state of the nations health care delivery system, which is not helped by the frequent industrial crises in the sector, lack of requisite equipment, manpower and expertise in some critical areas. It is public knowledge that Nigerian citizens account for greater percentage of Africans that travel annually to access treatment for debilitating health conditions. It is also true that most of them travel for mainly kidney and cancer-related ailments, which the nations health care system has, most times, not adequately and effectively responded to. We applaud the planned intervention by India and also urge the nations health authorities to wake up from their deep slumber and address the shortfall in the citizenrys health care needs that would warrant foreign countries to build hospitals in our shores. The time has come for government to equip our hospitals, especially the supposed centres of excellence located in each of the six geopolitical zones as well as the state-of-the-art hospitals that most state governors claim they have erected for their people. While direct foreign investment in healthcare services is welcome, we cannot always depend on foreign intervention before we can put our health sector in good stead. The government owes it a duty to provide adequate healthcare services for its citizenry. In fact, the health need of a citizen is part of his human rights, which the state is supposed to protect. Government has no reason to abdicate this duty that enhances the wellbeing and productivity of its citizens. Nevertheless, let this assistance jolt us back to reality. It should serve as a wake-up call for our leaders and our government at all levels to rise up to the challenges facing the health sector headlong. This development ought to be a clarion call on our governors to resuscitate their state hospitals. It would serve as a reminder to the federal government to revamp its health facilities. Let the governments avowed transformation agenda reflect on this critical sector. It is time to refocus our health services to meet the needs of Nigerians. Government can do this by taking a second look at our national health policy and rework it to fit into current health requirements of the people. We should find out the immediate and remote causes of our failing health sector and fix them. If this is done, it would reduce drastically the rate of medical tourism embarked by Nigerians. Nigeria has enough human and material resources to turn around the health sector. What is needed is the political will to make the sector work. Nigerian medical experts are found in all parts of the world. It is high time some of them were attracted home to help boost our ailing health sector. Let wealthy Nigerians complement governments effort and invest in the nations health sector. This has become necessary in view of the fact that government alone cannot cater for the health needs of its citizenry. Fortunately, Nigeria has enough wealthy men and women that can build and equip specialist hospitalsthatwould rival the best in the world. This is an opportunity for private-public mix in revamping the nations debilitating health sector
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 08:27:33 +0000
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