2019 polls: Doctors demand health care in party manifestos

The Nigerian Medical Association says health must be put on political agenda ahead of elections next year so Nigerians can hold politicians to account for health care delivery.

The association held a townhall meeting with political parties, civil society groups, National Labour Congress and professional bodies in Abuja at the start of its scientific conference.

NMA president Mike Ogirima said with 2019 around the corner, politicians are already canvassing support but insisted Nigerians must engage politicians “differently this time.”

“We must resolve to educate and enlighten Nigerians as 2019 beckons not to be carried away by sentiments, ethnicity, religion or sugar coated soap vituperations, but to ask what plans the politicians have for them to improve healthcare delivery and other sectors and how they intend to achieve them.”

The resolutions of the townhall meeting feed into NMA’s Abuja Affirmation 2018, calling for the medical community to engage with politicians and politics in hopes of curbing the challenges manifest in health care throughout the country.

“It has become a status symbol to say ‘I went to Germany for malaria treatment’,” said Mike Egboh, of the Health Sector Reform Coalition, citing Nigeria’s ongoing battle with medical tourism and brain drain.

“With politicians and bankers, health is bad business but it is not bad business when they fly to India or Dubai for malaria treatment,” he noted, lamenting reluctance to invest in health industry.

“We talk about health indices, maternal mortality but what does it mean to politicians?”

Virologist Oyewale Tomori said nonchalant attitude to public health and a lack of equity has hampered the health sector.

“The allowance of a senator in one year is enough to fully vaccinate 30 million children,” he said in condemnation of failure to budget for immunisation.

He cited continued year-on-year decline of health budget since the Tafawa Balewa administration as also responsible for existence of diseases that ought to have been eradicated.

“For over three decades, the diseases I escaped from are the same diseases my children are fighting off with vaccines,” Tomori said.

Eze Onyekpere, of the Centre for Social Justice said Nigeria must pay attention to its population considering the availability of infrastructure and resources.

“If we continue to pretend that we don’t want to control our population, we are simply deceiving ourselves,” he said.

He also urged the country to draw up and fund its “minimum obligation” to its citizens, citing the poor coverage of health insurance.

The push is to have political parties put health care on their manifestos to “let them know that we have suffered enough and should stop taking our loyalty, continued support and cooperation for a ride.” At least 68 parties have registered for polls.

Ezenwa Nwagwu of the Partners for Electoral Reform said manifestos have historically been sparse on engaging real issues.

Speaking about threats and opportunities in the 2019 polls, he said, “The supervening narrative on political engagement has remained largely on ethno-religious lines. The challenge will not be in manifesto writing; it will be in implementation.”

Culled from Daily trust .