From insufficient manpower and shortage of drugs through strikes to often avoidable epidemics, our
healthcare system seems to suffer from a pathetic case of poor or non-existent organisation. Nothing illustrates this more than the perennial outbreak of cholera and meningitis in various parts of the country, often resulting in the loss of many lives. This year, once again, the figures are hitting the headlines, underscoring our collective failure as a nation to reign in these recurrent indices of utter shame.
With no less than 40 people recently lost in Kano state to cholera and meningitis, and over 60 deaths in Edo state due to cholera, it is clear that regardless of what efforts those who claim to be doing all they can to stem this dreadful tide may be putting in, our nation has yet to change for the better in this very important area. Yet this is no time to cite uninspiring statistics, for in the words of a Chinese proverb, it is “better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”
In lighting a candle where the issue of healthcare delivery is concerned, it is not the intention of Daily Trust at this juncture to recount harrowing tales of people’s suffering across the land. However, this reality must never be swept out of our collective consciousness, for to do so would be accepting President Obasanjo’s recent declaration that there is no poverty in Nigeria without a murmur. The prevalence of infectious diseases like cholera and meningitis is one indisputable pointer to the error of the president’s assertion. This is because it does not require the painstakingly acquired qualifications of a medical specialist or that of a sociologist to establish the indelible link between poverty and diseases such as cholera and meningitis.
Whereas the collective responsibility we all share for some of the failings in our health sector stems from such things as failure and or incapacity in not a few cases to ensure a high level of personal hygiene; unwillingness and or inability to maintain clean surroundings by some individuals; reluctance and or impatience to abide by safe practices like boiling drinking water where a purification system may not be available, the particular failure of the various tiers of government in lacking a coherent, all-encompassing health policy and vigorously pursuing same, must concern all of us.
In redressing this anomaly, it is the position of this newspaper that the many governments operating in the country ought to wake up to the reality that governance is nothing if it does not better the lot of the people. In the particular area of healthcare, the point has been reached where stop-gap measures—while admittedly necessary to arrest burgeoning situations—must not be allowed to disrupt the institution of a clear-cut plan of action to tackle well known perennial issues. For instance, the persistent failure of the authorities to provide clean potable water to Nigerians, when the link between lack of clean water and many diseases (not least among them cholera) is well known, requires nothing short of a national emergency action plan. The point must be made here that if as much money, effort and governmental enthusiasm as have gone into organising and hosting events of at best questionable national importance like CHOGM and COJA has been expended in the pursuit of providing clean potable water to the citizenry, a visible impact would have been made by now with the attendant positive consequences on the health of the people.
Furthermore, we feel it is our duty to question what sort of reforms government is implementing if the need to ensure good ventilation in homes and adequate drainages in neighbourhoods where they are lacking does not concern the authorities. The many human losses occasioned by meningitis principally should have spurred the relevant bodies into taking decisive action by this time.
Finally, neither the understandable fact that we cannot realistically expect the situation to be completely reversed overnight, nor the seemingly daunting task of redirecting the efforts of the authorities into proper governance should be used as excuses to allow these unending crises in our health sector to continue.
