नाईजीरिया इस SICK

NIGERIA IS SICK

Nigeria is a sick country and there is no doubt about this. The country and its citizens are plagued by a myriad of diseases such as poor power supply, corruption, unemployment, lack of potable water, poor and dilapidated public facilities and infrastructures. Added to this is the growing crime rate, hunger, poor housing and transportation system, inadequate educational facilities, political and economic instability; as well as poverty itself. The virus that caused these diseases permeates all sectors of the nation’s life. And until a radical surgery operation is carried out, the country would be transiting from one disease to another.

Sickness is not a stranger or visitor to Nigeria. If the foundation is faulty what can the righteous do? The foundation determines the strength of a building and with the kind of foundation we have as a nation (dis)eases cannot be far from us. Our president personified our country Nigeria and if he is sick then Nigeria and Nigerians are sick. His is an apt reflection of the state of health of majority of Nigerians, who daily go about suffering and smiling without national and international attention because they are not fortunate enough to be the president of Nigeria. When the head is bad the whole body is rotten. Though he is not a superman, President Umaru Yar’dua, as a man can be sick. His presidential immunity does not extend to being free from sickness.

Umaru can never solve all the problems of Nigeria but his health challenge should be a pointer to one area that his administration can make a difference. Umaru should emulate Kanu Nwankwo, who after his heart operation, shortly after Atlanta ’96 set up the Kanu Heart Foundation to cater for the less privileged and to draw public and international attentions to millions of Nigerians who are suffering from one heart defect or the other. The health sector should have urgent and compassionate attention from the president. Not many Nigerians can afford the hospital bills in Germany, Saudi Arabia and other foreign hospitals that our leaders and rulers go for their health care. Most of our leaders who jet out at the slightest headache for treatment abroad could not have been doing this if they were to pay from their private purses. Also if there were local alternatives or comparable health facilities, many would not go abroad for treatment. At times the cost of a health trip by one government official may be enough to establish a well-equipped health centre in one remote community that has never seen a doctor or visited by a nurse. We do not begrudge our leaders going abroad for treatment but primary and secondary health facilities in the country should be given adequate attention. A stitch in time, they say, saves nine; this saying cannot be more apt in other sector than health. If Nigerians can have access to preventive drugs and health services, it would be in the interest of the nation.

Health is wealth, the saying goes; and the only difference between the two words is their first letters that means they go together. Healthy Nigerians would simply translate into wealthy Nigerians as most of the money spent on expensive foreign medical trips would have been saved and deployed in other areas of need in the country. We hope most of these foreign medical trips are not another mode of money laundering or siphoning the nation’s scare resources abroad. But one thing is certain: it is capital flight. The federal government should take urgent steps to improve our public health care delivery system and the standard of our health facilities. When this is achieved, the man hours lost to ailments like malaria and other preventable diseases would be reduced if not eliminated. Too many sick leaves, which translate into low productivity, would have been curbed.

Daily in our newspapers, televisions and radio, motor parks and other public places we are confronted with pleas for assistance from one less privileged Nigerian or the other to settle medical bills ranging from 50,000 to 10 million naira to enable them pay for hospital bills within or outside Nigeria. And these sick people are all Nigerians and we have no welfare programme to take care of people with certain ailments which obviously are beyond their financial capacity. If our president was one Umaru, a cattle rearer or ‘maiguard’, he would have been dead since or if he was still alive he would have been a vegetable and a burden to his family, who may not have the courage to abandon or dump him somewhere but would be silently praying for him to die. Can you see the difference that life chances can make in the destiny of a man?

Nobody prays for such sickness so that he/she can get government patronage but there is a need to put in place a social security package that would take care of people suffering from confirmed cases after medical examination by government doctors. They should be treated at government expenses, especially if the victims are youths under 30 years and the aged above 60 years, especially for those who cannot afford such treatment. Like doctors and hospitals that always insisted on payment or police report before treating accident victims, does anyone leaves his house hoping to be involved in an accident and therefore carry enough cash to pay his hospital deposit? Even in these days of ATM cards, one may have cash in the bank but there may be no bank nearby for an individual to get money. Remember you are not supposed to divulge your pin number to another person. Hospitals should also change their policies and attitude towards accident victims and other emergency cases as no man prepares for calamity.

We are not suggesting that all sick Nigerians should be send abroad for treatment rather the National Hospital Abuja should be upgraded to international standard like the one Umaru attended in Germany and Saudi Arabia, at least the one in Saudi is a government one facility. Our leaders should not only go to Mecca for pilgrimages, they should also copy the culture of good governance and strive to replicate same here in Nigeria. Also, at least one teaching hospital in the six geo-political zones in the country should be designated a medical centre of excellence, in terms of funding, facilities and equipment, to avoid the facilities at the National Hospital, Abuja being overstretched. Nigeria has the resources and personnel to offer its citizens the best medical care that one could have anywhere in the world. Why can’t we replicate the good facilities and services we enjoy abroad in our country? Is there anything elitist in being sick or about health facility? Or do we have elitist ailments? A sick man is a sick man whether a noble or a commoner. Sickness like death has no respect for class or calling, once you contract it: the symptoms, diagnoses or treatment are the same if the same, equipment, facilities and drugs are available.

The Bible says if my people who are called by my name would repent and seek me, I would heal their land. We should stop being religious and go to God in sincere repentance and he will heal our land. Those who embezzled money meant for health facilities, equipment and infrastructures; those who import fake, substandard and adulterated drugs need to repent and forsake their evil ways. They should not only ask God to forgive them but should also ask Nigerians to forgive them for what they did to bring our health institutions to its current deplorable state. May God heal Nigeria and our President, Umaru. Long live President Umaru Yar’dua! Long live Nigeria!