Healthcare in Nigeria

Description:

Healthcare in Nigeria is a three tier system - Primary Health Care, Secondary Health Care, and Tertiary Health Care.

Primary Health Care

The Provision of health care at this level is largely the responsibility of Local Governments with the support of state ministries of health and within the overall national health policy. Private medical practitioners also provide health care at this level.

Secondary Health Care

This level of health care provides specialised services to patients referred from the primary health care level through out-patient and in-patient services of hospitals for general medical, surgical, paediatric patients and community health services. Secondary health care is available at the district, divisional and zonal levels of the states. Adequate supportive services such as laboratory, diagnostic, blood bank, rehabilitation and physiotherapy are also provided.

Tertiary Health Care

This level consists of highly specialised services provided by teaching hospitals and other specialist hospitals which provide care for specific diseases such as orthopaedic, eye, psychiatric, maternity and paediatric cases.

The Nigerian healthcare service offers both public and private hospitals.

Public Hospitals

The public hospitals are Government and state owns and include General Hospitals, University teaching and Specialist Hospitals.

The public hospitals are affordable but most lack adequate equipment. Usually the queues at these types of hospitals are very long and this also makes for very long waiting times as there are a large number of patients waiting to be seen.

Private Hospitals

There are also a large number of private hospitals in Nigeria, however, these are a lot more expensive than the public hospitals.

These hospitals vary in size and expertise and although some have adequate hospital equipment, others don't and have to refer patients to bigger hospitals for lab tests, X-rays.

Paying for Treatment

In order to obtain hospital services, one has to go through the registration process and also pay a deposit. Without an initial payment the likelihood of being treated is slim.

The payment has to be completed once the treatment is finished. In some instances, the private hospitals will charge for each stage of the treatment and expect to be paid as the treatment progresses.

Corporate Healthcare

Some companies will use a particular hospital for staff and pay the clinic a retainer.

Other companies advise staff to seek their own medical treatment and reimburse them for costs incurred if a receipt is produced.

Health Insurance

The Nigerian National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) came into place a few years ago and aims to improve the health of all Nigerians at an affordable cost. It is also supposed to guarantee easy access to health care for all.

The NHIS has a list of approved and accredited Hospitals, Clinics and Pharmacies.

More detailed information about the Scheme can be obtained from their website:
http://www.nhis.gov.ng/

Buying medicine

There are a large number of pharmacies in Nigeria and costs vary from one to another. The more common drugs are largely available.

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) have been working on regulating the pharmaceutical sector, especially to assure that expired or ‘fake' drugs do not flood the market and ensure that these pharmacies are sell genuine medicine to the Nigerian public.