The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has called on the Nigerian government to provide affordable healthcare services for all citizens.
The group said this, according to a statement jointly signed by its National President Aruna Kadiri.
While making reference to recent reports of the poor state of facilities at the Aso Rock Clinic, the Nigerian students’ apex body noted that the “meagre allocation to healthcare underscores the insensitivity of the authorities to public health.”
Kadiri went witty in noting that “a healthy nation is indeed a wealthy nation and there is no other way of changing the deplorable state of healthcare in the country than adequate funding.”
The group believed that affordable and quality healthcare services should be provided to all Nigerians regardless of class. It noted that the poor state of the health sector contributes to why a class of Nigerians seek medical treatments abroad.
The current situation where some class “continue to flock foreign countries to seek medical care while the poor are left with no other option than to probably die or simply vegetate is a sad commentary on the level of leadership responsibility in Nigeria, a country that is supposed to be the giant of Africa.”
It linked the poor state of the health sector to the high rate of maternal and child mortality.
“Kadiri says turning this around depends on a responsible and committed leadership, which get its priorities right. The demand for increased benchmark funding of the health sector is, therefore, totally in order.
The healthcare facilities in Nigeria are in horrible state, the conditions of service are bad for the personnel and the policy environment is discouraging. The NANS also demands improved welfare package for health workers to halt the mass exodus of Nigeria’s competent hands in healthcare delivery. We call on the Chairman Senate Committee on Health Senator Lanre Tejuosho to equally rise up from his slumber and look into the decay in the health sector.
The danger, if government fails to do the right thing, is that Nigeria, already unhealthy economically, may become a comprehensively unhealthy nation, in which the citizens have very poor medical care too,”it said.
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