Thread by @olaokun_s

Just gave a talk at Medic West Africa Conference workshop entitled
Health Insurance in Nigeria –Progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
Supported by Pharmaccess, IQVA &Healthcare Fed'n of Nigeria.

I was given license to get RADICAL.
Here are my slides:
(Thread...)

The definition of UHC is technical but to bring it to life I used two tweets. One sums up the catastrophic results of ill-health in the absence of Universal Health Coverage. The other speaks for millions who are 'one disaster away from poverty' /2
@tillytate20

Health professionals have a responsibility to agitate more about the abysmal state of healthcare in Nigeria because most people don’t know enough about their rights nor are they empowered to demand them. /3

Our statistics are abysmal – progress in other parts of the world means that even if our healthcare stats were static we would be falling behind in relative terms. Sadly, in many areas we are getting worse. We MUST increase our health expenditure. /4

We have an emergency that requires RADICAL thinking to speed up the pace of change. I gave examples of disruptive ideas that could accelerate the pace of change. One in each of five areas critical to the health system. /5

First: Healthcare financing should be the engine for any health care system and our NHIS, even if it was functioning efficiently, has been given results mandate. It cannot implement Insurance & also assist states to set up schemes because it is effectively a competitor. /6

Second: Federal government and all states should leverage on the private sector and embark on a rapid expansion of PPPs for the running of facilities.
FG should concession its tertiary hospitals, states should concession General Hospitals. /7

Third: We need an urgent plan to massively expand the health workforce. DG of WHO did it in Ethiopia. We need Village Health Workers. Health sector shd have ITS OWN NYSC - ALL health-related graduates to join the NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE CORPS, exclusively for community work. /8

Gov't should partner with firms to develop a health medium-tech industry, to manufacture equipment &basic drugs. The need is massive. It wld reduce costs, need for foreign imports &grow our economy. We have the potential to produce a wide variety of products. /9
@tinyheartstech

I gave examples of the late Dr. Awojobi’s enterprising low-tech inventions as well as illustrating some promising examples of technology leapfrogging (results some amazing uses for 3d printers!). /10

Finally I urged everyone to get more radical in holding the politicians to account. We need less advocacy and more ACTIVISM.
Our language must reflect the urgency – e.g. what we call lack of political will is most often better called political negligence. I gave examples! /11

Conclusion:
We are far from UHC. Healthcare is in crisis and our failure is measured in lives lost. We must press politicians to think differently, act with urgency and be firm in holding them to account. In the health sector, we have to move from advocacy to ACTIVISM. /End