The Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has unveiled plans to deploy every necessary mechanism to reduce to the barest minimum, all forms of corruption in public hospitals operating in the country.
The move was conceived following the statistics on corruption as released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in conjunction with the United Nations Organization for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which placed the rate of bribery amongst adults who accessed healthcare services in public hospitals at 4%.
President of the NMA, Dr. Bala Muhammed Audu who made the disclosure during a media parley on Wednesday in Abuja, noted that although it was heart warming the healthcare sector was highest in delivery of services to Nigerians, the Association was saddened that some Nigerians had to give bribes to access health care.
Audu however noted that even though the NMA wants to see zero corruption in the healthcare sector, the sector was least corruptible in the country even as he added that the integrity and ethics within the nation’s healthcare sector was highly commendable and worthy of emulation by other service providers.
He said: “The efforts we are making both in the public and private sector was recently attested to by the statistics that was released by the National Bureau of Statistics in conjunction with the United Nations Organization for drugs and crime, which shows that amongst all public sector services, doctors and nurses provided the highest proportion of services.
“The statistics showed that 30% of adult Nigerians access services of doctors and nurses in the public sector with out having to pay a bribe of any sorts however, unfortunately, it also shows that 4% of adults in the public sector before seeing a doctor or a nurse either pay a bribe or were asked to pay a bribe.”
The NMA President who noted that the statistics does not cover other services rendered including pediatric cases, disclosed that the Association was already considering carrying out a study to uncover the extent of corruption in the delivery of healthcare services in both public and private hospitals in the country, as well as to find the root cause.
Speaking further, Dr. Audu who noted that the percentage of doctor to patient ratio compared with recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO) was still very low and further worsening due to mass migration of doctors, noted that the available doctors were struggling to ensure Nigerians have access to quality, affordable and timely healthcare services.
On the rising cost of medicines, the NMA President who disclosed that 80% of generic drugs used in the country could be manufactured locally and exported to neighbouring African countries for a start, added that many of the raw materials were available within the country.
According to him, besides increasing costs of medical equipments and maintenance of utility services within healthcare facilities, the recent rise in electricity tariffs was affecting quality, affordable healthcare care delivery to Nigerians.
Dr. Audu further disclosed that the NMA in a bid to see an improvement in funding of the health sector, has proposed the establishment of a National Tertiary Health Care Development Fund.
“This way we will be able to provide adequate funding across our tertiary institutions, but we’ll also be able to open additional gate ways that will enable even the private sector to access funding through very low interest rates, if government monetary policies are put in place, such as those that reduce tax and tariffs on imported medication.”
