Promotion of health through consumer protection: Nigeria

This paper investigates the attitudes of Nigerian health consumers towards modern health care facilities. It examines both the traditional beliefs and customs which stand in the way of accepting modern health care, and the modern health care facilities themselves which discourage patients through their red tape, lack of interpersonal communication and mass production atmosphere. The paper attempts to explain the communication gap between patients and modern medical practitioners in Nigeria by examining the historical development of medical science in the country. It concludes that there is no continuity between the traditional and modern practitioners and that modern health care is totally derived from the Western world without consideration for the social and cultural background of the population. Special training in interpersonal relationship of all medical and paramedical personnel including the observation of psychological methods used by the traditional healers, as well as "a patient's bill of right" aimed at promoting health consumer awareness of the part he has to play in the proper delivery of health care are proposed.