Private hospitals render 70% of health services in Nigeria

About 70 percent of health care services in
Nigeria are rendered by private health
facilities, President, Nigerian Guild of Medical
Doctors, Dr. Tony Philips, has said. Philip, who
stated this during an interview with National
Mirror, said without private health institutions
in the country, health services would be
paralyzed.
He argued that the impacts of private health
services in the country arise from lack of
unionism, strikes and recurrent crises that
characterize public health institutions in the
nation. He however lamented that multiple
taxation and high rate by banks were major
factors militating against private hospitals in
the country.
According to him, government in the Federal
Capital Territory collect as much as eight
taxes from each private health facility located
in the city. He noted that the only option for
salvaging the nation's health sector is
increased public-private-partnership, PPP.
He stressed that members of the guild
through its annual Scientific Conference find
ways to further strengthen the nation's
health sector and ensure qualitative health
care delivery for all. Philip said further of the
contributions of private hospitals to the
nation's health care system, which he
emphasized are being driven by the annual
scientific conference agenda: "When we talk
about transformation of health, we were
actually looking at medical tourism thing at
the back of our mind. Over the years, medical
tourism has been a problem in this country
because, one, it intends to undermine the
capabilities of our doctors. It tends to portray
to the outside world, even among ourselves,
that we don't have anything to cope with
medical problems.
"But, it is not the truth because the case of
the Kogi state governor was a case study
which showed that we have what it takes. For
one to treat a government who was involved
in an accident here by one of our members,
that is Cedacrest. It was an eye opener. Apart
from that, there are other hospitals all over
the country. But, the mentality of people that
nothing good can come out
Posted By David Aniemeka