Nigerians are admiring the evacuation of the USA President from the White House to Walter Reed Medical Centre for the best medical care in the world. Most wonder why the same could not be achieved for Nigeria's Presidents, and some prayed President Muhammadu Buhari to solve this age-long problem of shipping our number one citizen and other top government officials abroad for medical care.
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| Donald Trump Descending Marine-1 At Walter Reed Medical Centre |
I'll start by asking some basic questions. Why do you think Nigerian Government officials love to travel abroad for medical care, or why are Nigerian Government officials obsessed with travelling abroad for anything at all?
Impact Of Government Travel Allowances On Nigeria's Healthcare
Perhaps it's not that they cannot be treated locally. Maybe it's just because they lack the will due to something called ESTACODES. Every time our government officials travel abroad, they get thousands of dollars to spend on their trip. In addition to this, they can make more money by budgeting for the most expensive flights, hotels, and chauffer services, then using cheaper ones.
A Chief Justice of Nigeria had $800,000 (N400,000,000) in just one of his bank accounts, which he made legally off these estacodes and travel allowances. The graphic below shows estacodes and basic travel allowances of Nigerian government officials Per night during travels abroad.
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| Nigerian Government officials estacode per night for foreign trips |
When it comes to healthcare of our top government officials, the allowances are more bogus, and in some cases, could be a blank cheque to legally loot the nation dry. Why then would a Minister, Governor, or even the President want to receive treatment at Bonny Camp Military Hospital? Why would they want to build a hospital as good as Walter Reed Medical Centre anywhere in Nigeria when that nullifies their excuse to travel to Dubai and London for a medical checkup, while making enough money off us to acquire some prime real estate in those cities with allowances they earn off our taxes?
By the time the new 160-bed Evercare Hospital Lekki is completed, it will most likely be the best hospital in Nigeria, at par with some of the world-class hospitals our public officers fly off to abroad. Now, if our President and other Government officials patronize it, who pay them the huge amounts they usually earn in FOREX as allowances when they travel abroad? It's very important that any time we want to surmount challenges in Nigeria, we try to find out what the real cause of the problem is.
Power Failure And Nigeria's Failed Health System
The almighty NEPA is the next most serious problem preventing Nigeria from having a standard healthcare system. World-class hospitals run on a huge chunk of electrical power everyday. Consider just the air-conditioning, lighting, equipment on each bed in a 500-bed hospital, ultrasound equipment, X-ray machines, MRI equipment, multiple lifts and elevators, computers, kitchen, laundry, and entertainment equipment.
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| Intensive Care Hospital Bed With Equipment |
A study at a 900-bed capacity hospital in Taipei, Taiwan showed a maximum power consumption of about 3,500 kW of electricity at full capacity. Where do you get a constant supply of that sort of power in Nigeria? Back-up generator? You better get two, as in the real medical world, you need constant supply of power, then a back-up generator which can deliver about 80% of that. This means at Evercare Hospital Lekki, they will need a main 600 kW main power generator, then a 480 kW back up generator. Aside from the main generator, and the backup generator, most sections of the hospital require high capacity inverters, batteries, and UPS as last resort since we're dealing with human lives here, and just one second off life support could mean death.
It's not the upfront costs of these industrial generators which is the primary issue, but the buying of diesel to run them everyday...unless of course we feel a world-class hospital treating Mr President, Ministers, Governors, our Dangote, Otedola, Elumelu, should be running on and off NEPA.
although these are the top hurdles toward achieving independence in Nigeria's healthcare sector, here are a hundred more constraints, including but not limited to appointing incompetent Health Ministers, embezzling of NHIS and other health insurance funds, then of course, the annual flight of thousands Nigerian doctors to developed countries where they end up being the ones who treat our top government officials at the end of the day.
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