COVID-19 AND LESSONS TO BE LEARNED...(5)

 NEW WAYS OF GREETING (Seriously, must we shake hands?): hand shaking has been a formal way of greeting and has reportedly been with us for over 2,000 years. However, findings that the virus can be contracted by us touching our mouth eyes and nose and with most people unable to long resist urges to touch their faces, has led to the advisory against shaking of hands as a form of greeting. In a 2014 article in DW Magazine, it was reported that several studies have shown that handshakes are a very common way of transmitting diseases. In the same article, it was reported that only about two-thirds of men wash their hands after using public restrooms. In Nigeria, where men frequently urinate on the sides of the road, which of course have no hand washing facilities, the figure will be significantly higher. 

By the time this pandemic is finally over, some of us might have to reexamine the culture of hand shaking as a form of greeting.

IMPROVING THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM:successive governments both at the State and Federal levels, have paid scant attention to truly developing Nigeria’s healthcare infrastructure and the manpower taking care of the health of the citizens. With most public officials flying out of the country at the merest hint of bodily discomfort, it is no wonder that the healthcare infrastructure and system have deteriorated till the hospitals became mere consulting clinics. Healthcare providers are underpaid, overworked and unappreciated and most of them have therefore left Nigeria for other shores where they are better paid and where facilities are much better provided for their work. 

The need of most countries to contain the spread of Covid-19 has led to closure of borders and the airspace in most countries and perhaps for the first time in decades, some of those at the helms of the country’s affairs are now confronted with the decrepit healthcare system their criminally selfish neglect has ‘bequeathed’ to the country. More than any other thing in recent history, Covid-19 presents Nigeria’s leaders at all levels, with a chance to recalibrate and devote more funds and attention to the health sector. Nigeria has consistently fallen very short of the 2001 African Union Countries’ 15% of annual budget target and the 15% of annual budget recommendation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) also of the same year.

Percentages allocated to health have not risen up to 6% of the total annual budgets in spite of Nigeria’s commitment to follow the African Union Countries’ declaration of 15% ironically made in the FCT in 2001. According to Budgit, combined budgetary allocations to education and health in the 2020 Appropriation Act came to just about 11% of the total budget (and that was before the budget was revised with health and education suffering drastic cuts). And even of the dismal 4.14% which came to N427.3B allocated to health for the year, only about N46.48 Billion is for capital expenditure, the bigger chunk goes to recurrent expenditure. The Cable’s report of November 7, 2019 titled Critical Issues on FG’s 2020 healthcare budget written by Joshua Olufemi gives graphic details of the dire straits Nigeria’s healthcare sector is in.

If the account in the article does not give you pause on the importance or lack of importance, attached to the development of our health sector by successive governments in Nigeria, perhaps the fact that the UK’s National Health Service (NHS)’s annual budget according to Dr. Ola Brown in her book titled Fixing Healthcare in Nigeria, is equivalent to the Nigeria’s federal health budget for 200 years will. In case the significance of the multiple of years by which UK’s NHS budget size versus Nigeria’s budget size eluded you, UK has a population of 60 million people while Nigeria’s estimated population is at least 3 times that of the UK.

Though one wants to have the hope that the closure of airspaces and the consequent inability of Nigeria’s public officials to travel during this period will make them see the need to develop both the healthcare infrastructure and the workers in the healthcare sector in the country, the recent cut by 25% in the capital allocation to the Ministry of Health and the 42% cut in the allocation for primary health care in the 2020 revised budget indicate otherwise.