Healthcare - Imagine This

I was in Europe recently and met a Dr. on a flight from Brussels who asked me where I was from. When I answered Nigeria he informed me that he had several Nigerian patients. I was curious to know their identities but unsure if he would tell me due to the patient doctor privilege, however when I asked if he knew their names, he proceeded to reel out the names of important Nigerians in leadership positions. It was like a who is who in Nigeria. As I listened to him speak, it occurred to me that perhaps the single most important reason why our ‘big men’ politicians have not thought it wise to improve the health sector as well as health delivery is because they do not patronize Nigerian health facilities.

How many governors or president know the state of general hospitals in their domains? Very few if any at all. How can you improve something of which you have little or no knowledge of?

I know of a son of an ex-ruler who publicly (in a Thisday newspaper interview) boasted of flying his polo horse to Switzerland for medical check ups. This at a time when millions of Nigerians do not have ‘paracetamol’ to take when they have aches and pains. This can only happen because there is a disconnect, a disjointedness between Nigeria’s leaders and the led.

I now understand why we have spent so much on defense, security and aviation. These are areas that affect our big men. They spend the bulk of the our resources on defense and security because they have to protect themselves from Nigerians who have been so impoverished that many are frustrated into kidnapping of politicians and high profile persons. But this is only treating the symptoms. The underlying problems are there and can not be wished away.

The same goes for education. Nigeria is perenially listed by The U.N and UNICEF as one of the countries who budget the least portion of their budget on education. Nigerians we have got it wrong. It is not that the cabal does not know the value of education they do. The real reason they do this is because all their children school abroad. Many Nigerian leaders only visit our public universities when they are to be conferred with honorary degrees which they have not earned but which the university authorities feel compelled to give them as a means of attracting funding. And then the big men proceed to talk down on and talk at rather than to these intellectuals who have been so impoverished to the extent that they depend on ‘hand outs’ to feed their families.

It may surprise many that a lot of privileged Nigerians actually donate monies to foreign universities especially those their kids attend. The sad thing is that the schools back home in thier states are desperately in need of funds.

If Nigerian leaders are hospitalized abroad, have their kids delivered abroad, school their children abroad, fly only foreign airlines, wear imported clothes and eat imported food how can they have a stake in Nigeria? And if they do not have a stake in Nigeria, how can they have the political will to fix Nigeria’s problems?

But I never like highlighting problems without talking of solutions.

I sustained my thought process on this issue and then it hit me. You see the only way we can have a better health care system is by enacting legislation that compels all elected officials to patronize only Nigerian health facilities. Privileged Nigerians are not aware of what the masses go through because they fly to Europe at the slightest sign of ill health. Their wives also have their babies abroad and their inner circle of friends do likewise all at public expense.

Similarly we need to legislate that all elected officials must have their own wards and children educated only in Nigerian public schools be it primary or university. They have to be compelled to feel what the people feel and suffer what they suffer. Then and only then would they tackle the problems faced by every day ordinary Nigerians.

We should also stop this practice of the government at all levels acquiring air ambulances. We need to have ambulances on the road to cater to our road accident victims who are actually victims of Nigeria’s notoriously bad roads. Until we have enough ambulances on the road, we should not have an ambulance on the air. Nigeria is meant for us all, not just for big men.

Ordinary Nigerians and youths as well as middle class Nigerians (if they still exist) who read this should not feel powerless. We can have real change if we begin to be more conscious of how governance in Nigeria works and speak out about its failures in other to make others conscious. When there is a critical mass of people who are conscious of the need to change Nigeria positively more and more will begin to act and progress will ensue. And it is happening already. It is! We have begun to see youths take out their anger on unresponsive public officials. But rather than stone these elected officials with rocks and sticks, we need to stone them with votes, i.e vote them out of office in 2011 and guard your votes and make it count. The people of Iran are doing so, we in Nigeria should take note of this.

I close with the immortal words of John Lennon in the song ‘Imagine;

‘ you may say I’m a dreamer
‘but I’m not the only one
‘I hope some day you’ll join us
and the world would be as one”
Once again God Bless Nigeria!

PU.