What is the Minimum Healthcare Requirement for Nigeria’s 200 million People?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), key characteristics of good health service delivery include comprehensiveness, accessibility, quality, and inclusive coverage. It should also be people-centred and well-coordinated. Accountability and efficiency are also important in healthcare delivery. 

Healthcare delivery in Nigeria is below the ideal. The healthcare system is poorly developed. Healthcare coverage is still very low and only about 10 percent of the population is covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme. 

The impact of this is most felt by the poorer Nigeria who lacks social and financial risk protection. Quality of healthcare services is also poor in Nigeria. Many of the primary healthcare facilities that should meet the health needs of the poor and rural dwellers are in a poor state due to poor budgetary allocation. While many healthcare facilities are in poor states, corruption pervades many healthcare facilities thus reducing the coverage of healthcare. 

On a general note, Nigeria’s healthcare challenges centers around the inadequacy of healthcare facilities, the inadequacy of caregivers, and the poor quality of care. As of 2019, only 40,000 doctors served Nigeria’s 200 million people. Although the total ratio of a healthcare professional (physicians, nurses, and midwives) is 20.1 per 10,000 people, the density of physicians per 10,000 population is only 4. 

However, the density of nurses and midwives is 16.1 per 10,000 population. In addition, there are only 5 hospital beds per 10,000 population in Nigeria. In addition, there are only 47 tertiary healthcare facilities and 3,768 secondary healthcare facilities in the country. While primary healthcare centers may be close to 30,000 in number, many of them are not in good condition.

But the gaps in Nigeria’s healthcare system are more glaring when compared to recommendations from WHO. From the recommendation, every single population of 10,000 people should have at least a basic healthcare unit. There should be five hospital beds per 1,000 people and 23 healthcare professionals should serve every 10,000 people. 

By implication, for Nigeria’s population which currently stands around 200 million people, at least 20,000 functional healthcare units are required. This should include primary healthcare centers, secondary facilities, and tertiary facilities. In addition, about 8.7 million healthcare professionals would be required to serve the population. Nigeria also needs about 1,000,000 hospital beds.

It is important for the Nigerian government to rethink its commitment to its healthcare sector. Efforts should be made to march up with minimum healthcare requirements. Increased budgetary allocation to the sector is also required. Further, Nigeria should prioritize accountability and efficiency in its healthcare delivery as both are key characteristics of quality service delivery.