Time to right the wrongs: improving basic health care in Nigeria

Nigeria, once heralded as the beacon of Africa, has fallen somewhat short of this potential. Years of kleptocratic repressive dictators and military rule, coupled with widespread corruption, have resulted in large-scale neglect and deterioration of public services. Nowhere is this more apparent than within the health sector. Government-run health-care services barely function: half the population are unvaccinated for routine diseases, and a burgeoning epidemic of HIV/AIDS, only now being adequately addressed, leaves 3.5 million already infected and without access to the most basic of care. A poorly structured health service that relies on vertical programmes for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria, means that coordination is chaotic, and already scant resources fail to reach the lower levels in which they are needed most. I visited Nigeria in October, 2001, with Médecins Sans Frontières, a humanitarian aid organisation that has been working in Nigeria since 1996. I witnessed the poor level of health care in Nigeria for myself--a country that is more than capable of providing effective services--and concluded that, even now, political priorities are being put ahead of the population's basic needs. The challenges to the new civilian government are monumental, and it is yet to show any solid commitment to improving the health of Africa's biggest nation.