‘Why life expectancy is declining’

This was the view of experts at the 2014 biennial delegates’ meeting of the National Association of Government General and Dental Practitioners (NAGGMDP) held in Ilorin.The five-day conference which has as its theme, “Governance and its impact on Family Health” is being attended by medical doctors from government hospitals in 36 states including military and […]

This was the view of experts at the 2014 biennial delegates’ meeting of the National Association of Government General and Dental Practitioners (NAGGMDP) held in Ilorin.
The five-day conference which has as its theme, “Governance and its impact on Family Health” is being attended by medical doctors from government hospitals in 36 states including military and para military hospitals.
National president of the association, Dr. Gabriel Musa who raised the alarm lamented that the situation was worsened by the neglect of primary health centres nationwide.
“We are not taking good care of our health system, we are not taking care of the family. The family is a unit of the nation. When you take care of the family which is a unit of the nation, you improve on them, you improve on the health system, all other sectors of the economy would be improved.
“The health system is over concentrated at the tertiary level, while neglecting the secondary and the primary levels and that does not augur well for our health system in this country. We need to reverse the trend,” he said.
A medical practitioner, Dr. Samuel Oloruntoba in his key note address, frowned at the neglect of the health sector in Nigeria, saying Nigeria’s health sector was ranked low among other West African countries.
According to him many Nigerians do not have access to qualitative health care over 50 years after independence even as Nigeria is the only country in Africa that is still battling with polio.
Olohuntoba highlighted the problems in the nation’s health sector to include lack of political will, meagre budget and non-implementation of various policies on health.