Public Healthcare Delivery in Nigeria, Abysmal – Onwubiko

By Chioma Ndife

A public policy analyst, Mr Polycarp Onwubiko, has decried the state of public healthcare delivery in the country and attributed it to what he calls the unwieldy exclusive legislative list in the Nigerian Constitution.

Onwubiko who spoke with the media in Awka made reference to the study of a media organization on the total collapse of public healthcare throughout the country and said that the comatose education and health sectors in the country stemmed from the faulty political structure which stripped the sub national governments of critical sectors like education and health which they could have made policies and executed programmes and projects that frontally addressed the needs at the grassroots levels.

Onwubiko who cited instances of the federal government’s policy flip-flops and lack of adequate funding in the execution of the “One Public Health Care per Ward, Basic Healthcare Provision Fund, and the Midwives Services Scheme Strategies”, contended that such critical healthcare plans could have been effectively and efficiently executed by the state governments which, he said, were closer to the grassroots with adequate knowledge of the health challenges in the geopolitical zones of the country.

Noting that public healthcare was a cornerstone of the health needs of the people, he expressed worry about Nigeria meeting up with the expectations of the Universal Healthcare and the attainment of health related Sustainable Development Goals and health security.

He therefore argued that restructuring governance would enable the federating units to accord public healthcare the top priority it needed in realizing that public healthcare was the first point of contact with healthcare system the world over.

The public policy analyst further said that the poor healthcare delivery had led to increases in maternal and child morbidity and mortality rates throughout the country, adding that restructuring of governance would address the critical issues that would lead to a productive economy.