Frontpage News (3259)
Nigeria loses N175 billion annually to medical tourism -Former Health Minister
The Former Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, has said that Nigeria was losing N175 billion annually to medical tourism. Mr. Chukwu made the claim at opening ceremony of the 2017 Faculty of Clinical Sciences 10th Faculty Week & Scientific Conference, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, on Tuesday, with theme: “Medical Tourism in Nigeria”.
He said that the wasted fund was more than 50 per cent of the proposed total budget for 2018 for the federal health sector.
INTERVIEW: What Nigerian govt is doing to achieve local vaccine production, functional PHCs – NPHCDA DG
Faisal Shuaib was appointed Director-General of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, in January. In this interview with Bisi Abidoye, Ayodamola Awoseye and Nike Adebowale of PREMIUM IMES, he speaks on the strategic ways the agency is trying to address the fundamental issues in primary healthcare in Nigeria.
PT- In terms of capital expenditure, what are the major concerns of your agency in the 2018 budget currently before the National Assembly?
Nigerian govt sets aside N28 billion to fund primary health care intervention in 2018
The Nigerian government has initiated a N28 billion health fund that will target the revitalisation of at least one primary health Centre in each of the 774 local government areas.
The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, on Monday inaugurated the special intervention which he said would be formally rolled out in 2018. According to the minister, part of the interventions would include Tertiary
Consumer council seeks to enforce patients’ rights in Nigerian hospitals
The Director General of the Consumer Protection Council, Babatunde Irukera, has said the agency has concluded plans to introduce a ‘Patient’s Bill of Rights,’ in Nigerian hospitals to govern the relationship between health practitioners and their patients.
Speaking during an interaction with journalists in Lagos on Thursday, Mr. Irukera said the Nigeria Medical Association, NMA as well as pharmacists’ bodies and other stakeholders in the health sector, had bought into the initiative.
Who confirms 10.5% failure rate of all medical products in Nigeria, others
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a red alert saying that an estimated one in every 10 medical products circulating in low- and middle-income countries, including Nigeria, is either substandard or falsified.
WHO, in conjunction with the first report from the Global Surveillance and Monitoring System published last week, yesterday, published a research that estimates a 10.5 per cent failure rate in all medical products used in low- and middle-income countries like Nigeria.
Hope for the production and acceptance of the Nigerian antiretroviral drug for the cure of HIV/ AIDS developed by Prof. Maduike Ezeibe, a renowned researcher at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike in Abia State, has received a boost with the granting of application for patent right to produce the drug for consumption by President Muhammadu Buhari.
This is in addition to financial assistance given to the researcher by Abia State government and the management of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike to carry out more trials on the efficacy of the drug both within and outside the country.
The Governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has revealed plans to constitute a council on health, which will assist in developing a Strategic Master Plan on Health and to coordinate activities of healthcare service providers in the state.
Obaseki disclosed this when he played host to members of the Institute of Health Service Administrators of Nigeria, at the Government House, Benin City, the Edo State capital, on Tuesday.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said yesterday that less than 10 per cent of young people in Kaduna State knew their HIV status. The HIV and AIDS Specialist, UNICEF, Kaduna, Dr Idris Baba, made this known in Kaduna at the 2017 World AIDS Day, organised by the Kaduna State Agency for the Control of AIDS (KADSACA).
The activity began with a rally from the Ministry of Health to KADSACA office along Katuru Road, Kaduna.
In Nigeria today, so many lives have been sacrificed all as a result of those victims resorting to self-medication and because some of the medical practitioners continue to make those drugs available to those victims without medical prescriptions from medical professionals. Though, few of those cases are made known to the public, the reality remains that the numbers of Nigerian citizens are actually being reduced as a result of this self-medication. In order words, this situation is becoming epidemic.
The State Commissioner for Health, Mr Babatunde Ipaye, said this during the second Annual Trace Corps Commander’s Conference in Abeokuta tagged: “Capacity Building in Road Traffic Management: Panacea for Combating Road Traffic Crashes within Ogun State.More...
The Borno State Government has scaled up Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) testing and treatment services at 264 health centres and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps to achieve United Nations’ AIDS strategy of 90:90: 90 by 2030.Court, Medical Council yet to act a year after ‘negligence’ caused woman’s death
The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, MDCN is yet to disclose details of its investigation into a case of alleged medical negligence involving the Federal Medical Centre, Abuja, for over one year.
PREMIUM TIMES had in December 2016 reported how the FMC allegedly engaged in acts of medical negligence resulting in the deaths of some patients, including 29-year-old Sandra David, who underwent a gall bladder correctional surgery in June 2016, and three other children who died at birth.
The professional rivalry in the Nigerian health sector is threatening to boil over as other unions in the sector have accused the ministry of showing blatant favouritism to medical doctors, and have passed a vote of no confidence on the minister, Isaac Adewole.
In a press statement on Monday, the Joint Health Sector Union and Assembly of Health Care Professionals, JOHESU/AHPA, demanded a restructuring of the ministry to accommodate allied health professionals in the political leadership of the sector.
At least half of world’s population can’t afford basic healthcare — WHO
At least half of the world’s population cannot afford essential health services even as a large number of households are being pushed daily into poverty each year, indicates a new report from the World Bank and World Health Organisation, WHO.
In demographics, the global population is the total number of humans currently living. The world population was estimated to have reached 7.6 billion as at October 2017. The United Nations estimates it will further increase to 11.2 billion by the year 2100.
