2022 hasn’t been a great year for healthcare centres in Lagos State. The state government served many of them breakfast with 157 closure notices and 42 permanent shutdowns.
The Health Facilities Monitoring and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA) shut down the centers because they didn’t follow the standards. Some other centers were closed for being unregistered, lacking qualified medical personnel, or conducting the illegal training of assistant nurses.
What’s going on with healthcare in Lagos?
Healthcare centers in Lagos have a history of bad maintenance and non-compliance with standards. In April 2022, the government shut down Medville Global Health Centre over the controversial death of a 28-year-old pregnant woman. The hospital had no blood bank and no ambulance for emergencies. In March 2022, the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) suffered a water scarcity crisis that forced patients to use sachet water.
The government also shut down Vedic Lifecare Hospital in November 2021 for hiring unlicensed foreigners as doctors. And in July 2019, a toddler died in Ikorodu General Hospital because there were no doctors on duty. The list of terrible practices goes on and on and it’s sad to realize how much Nigerian hospitals don’t rate us.
Why’s primary healthcare so poor in Nigeria?
According to a survey by the Nigeria Health Watch and NOI Polls, there’s currently a shortage of doctors in Nigeria. It’s not a secret most of them are running off to first-world countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. But even the ones staying have to deal with challenges bigger than their power, especially with equipment and their own welfare.
In May 2022, a former medical officer at Federal Medical Centre Kebbi, Chukwuka Okereke, also lamented the uneven distribution of the standard of care in Nigeria. In Lagos, most healthcare centres either don’t have enough personnel or equipment.
As citizens, it’s important to be vigilant about the healthcare centres where we seek medical care. Don’t go to a hospital unless you are sure it’s accredited by HEFAMAA. You can check out their website here.
And for healthcare operators running inadequate centres, breakfast is coming for you.
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