Problems And Achievement Of The Nigeria Health Care System

1.2 Statement of the problem

Regardless of taking steps to prioritize and improve health care, however, and has experienced unprecedented growth over other lower middle income countries of the region, the health outcomes at the national level in Nigeria are relatively poor. For example: While Nigeria’s under-five mortality rate has improved since 2000, it nonetheless remains very high (at 109 per 1,000 live births in 2015). The median U5M rate in sub-Saharan Africa is 80, and the Sustainable Development Goal target is <25 U5M rate by 2030. Adult mortality from non-communicable diseases in Nigeria has remained largely unchanged in the last decade; it was 22% in 2000 and 20% in 2012. DPT3 immunization coverage of 66% in 2014 falls well short of the 90% coverage the UN called for during its 27th Session).Women receiving the recommended four antenatal care visits declined 5.5% from 2011 to the 2013 rate of 56.6% – far from the SDG target of universal access to reproductive health care services.

It is expected that More worrying is the poor overall performance of the healthcare system in Nigeria, especially compared with other less affluent countries in Africa. For example, in 2005, Uganda has allocated 11% of its total budget to health care, while Nigeria, in 2006, only 5.6 % budgeted. Despite its high percentage of HIV + citizens, Uganda was ranked 149 of 191 countries and 39 came ahead of Nigeria to 187/191 in the 2000 World Health Report.

Low level of health care spending per capita in Nigeria seems to exclude it short of the SDGs 4 and 5, wherein the effective implementation of the strategy IMNCH require a greater commitment from all levels Nigerian health care system.

However, Obansa and Orimisan (2013) identified the following among others as factors that affect the overall performance of the Nigerian health care system: Inadequate health facilities/structure; shortage of essential drugs and supplies; Inadequate supervision of the healthcare system; Poor human resources, management, remuneration and motivation; Lack of fair and sustainable health care financing with very low per capita health spending; Unequal economic and political relations; The neo-liberal economic policies of the Nigerian state and corruption; High out-of-pocket expenditure in health by citizens and Absence of community-based integrated system for disease prevention, surveillance and treatment . It has become very necessary to reflect and propose plans and strategies that Checkmate the above mentioned factors militating against effective health care system in the country. Obansa and Osrimisan (2013) highlighted some strategies among others that will help meet the challenges of the health sector in the country as follow:  improved access to primary healthcare; Strategic and purposeful leadership in health delivery services; Increase fund to manage the health sector

The abject failure of public health care system in Nigeria has led to comments and criticism from local and national levels. The provision of adequate health care services for citizens, especially those residing in rural areas left much to be desired. Despite the propaganda of the media and the current reforms of the health sector by the government, the public health care system in Nigeria is still inefficient in all ramifications. It is therefore argued that the problems faced by the public health care system in Nigeria could be attributed to poor implementation of the national health policy and other health-related policies and programs. In addition, the implementation of national health policy and the ongoing reforms in the health sector are called upon to solve the perennial problems inflicting the development of public health care in Nigeria. The study further argues that it is only when the government ensures that health is regarded as the right of all citizens of the country, irrespective of status that the public health care system is said to be developed in Nigeria. It is obvious that poor implementation of health care policies and programmes is the major constraint to the achievement of desired goals in public health care provision in Nigeria, particularly at the local government level. For better improvement, the research suggests the need for political commitment as well as elimination of bureaucratic bottlenecks in public health care provision in Nigeria.