‘Instability, obsolete infrastructure threaten health care’

What are the challenges to qualitative healthcare delivery? Some of the challenges are inadequate infrastucture, according to the Director, Management Science for Health, Dr. James Rice, who spoke at this year’s edition of the West African Health (WAH) Conference and Exhibition in Lagos. The theme was: Nigeria’s health care infrastructure challenges and way forward.

The United States-based Rice said the health sector had the potential to improve the economy of the country, increase the employment base and by implication make the voting population strong.

“If you have a strong voting population, it means you are going to have a more stable political situation and a much more secured country,” Rice said.

He called on international and indigenous stakeholders to lead infrastructure improvement across the regions.

Lagos State Commissioner for Health Dr. Jide Idris , in his opening address, said governance, Information Communication Technology (ICT) and human resources were some key components of the soft aspect of infrastructure that must be enhanced for better health for all Nigerians and Africans as a whole.

His Ogun State counterpart Dr. Olaokun Soyinka said high-tech solutions to health care problems could only work if lower-tech options were maximised.

He said focusing on high-tech health care solutions without giving similar attention to low-tech options could be counter-productive, adding that there was every need to also look at possible ways of balancing the two ends.

Soyinka said: “Health care is expensive but it is important. As we spend on technological improvement, we should also take training and capacity building very important.”

Human rights crusader Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin noted that good health meant that poverty would have been reduced, adding that the incidence of crises that relate to it should also be minimised.

“As you are aware, health and poverty are directly related, so if poverty is reduced there would be better health, which can also be enhanced by improved infrastructure,” she said.

The Chairman, Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists, Lagos State, Mr Olawale Olabudu, said the expo provides a good opportunity for stakeholders and other sectors to cross fertilise ideas that could lead to improved health for all.

He said the event was positioned as a regional healthcare platform for the development of the health sector through the promotion of healthcare business and opportunities.

Chief Executive Officer, Global Resources and Projects ( organisers of WAH), Dr. Wale Alabi, while lamenting on state of health in Nigeria, said: “Fifty years after independence, Nigeria is still struggling with provision of basic health services for its teeming population, now estimated at over 170 million.”

He added that the country’s health sector is still labour intensive, in spite of advances in medical technology.

Alabi noted that health care provision has become more complicated than what it was in the past as common strategies to tackle development in the healthcare sector include improved access to primary healthcare, strategic and purposeful leadership in health delivery services and increased funding.

He urged the Federal and other state governments to emulate the Lagos State health sector reform that has transformed healthcare delivery in the state through the introduction of ambulatory and emergency care services, maternal and child care centre and other specialist care facilities.

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