Issues is a new NT series in which academics and policy experts write on their areas of expertise. If you would like to contribute to the series send an email to Olumide (his email address is on the page under the link).  The columnist this week is medical doctor and health policy analyst Seye Abimbola. The primary health care (PHC) facility is often [...]

Health is a prerequisite for development and the current state of the Nigerian health care system does not give any indication that the country’s renaissance is coming anytime soon.  Nigeria boasts the dubious honor of one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, child mortality does not fare any better either. Malaria, Polio, HIV/Aids rates are still far [...]

By Tayo O To answer the opening question, YES! People still die of malaria in 2012. A few weeks ago, someone’s response to a certain news about a malaria related death was akin to ‘people still die of malaria in 2012?’ That got me thinking about how Malaria has been with us for so long that we have accepted it [...]

By Temie Giwa The culture has changed and those who refuse to do the right thing and protect children should be punished accordingly. Soft power is no longer enough; the imperative to protect children calls for hard power and swift consequences.   All children have the right to life and health and this is a fundamental human right. Nigeria is [...]

By Maimunat Adeomi Reports already show that Nigeria revitalized its polio program involving traditional, religious and government leaders at all levels   I am an advocate for putting measures in place to ensure that the Poliovirus and the several other communicable diseases that plague the under 5 year Nigerians be eradicated. However I do not agree with the notion that [...]

By Hez Shobiye These parents are a product of the system and a reflection of what is going on in the country. So instead of just pointing fingers at them, let us usei have a bun an eagle eye to understand the root causes of this issue.   Should parents who refuse to vaccinate their children be prosecuted? Absolutely not! [...]

By Remi Oyedeji The immediate unaffordable cost of Medical care pushes them to choose a more fatal option that is cheap in the short run.   The landscape of our nation is littered with fragments of what could have been a great future truncated before it came to be. The death of that neonate in the delivery room, the sudden [...]

By Hez Shobiye The difficulty of paying out of pockets put most Nigerians in a great deal of financial risk and restricts them from having direct access to health care when they need it. Majority are even forced to sell their assets or go into debt in order to pay for health care costs.   How is health care paid [...]

By Seyi Taylor It is this negligence of the whole picture while so much attention is given on the small one that worries me.  If the medical profession would spend as much energy fighting for their salaries as they would ensuring that the government provided 24-hour electricity in major hospitals and concentrated on giving real care to the nation; perhaps [...]

by Sylva Nze Ifedigbo The National Health Bill 2011 gathers dust in one of the Aso Rock’s cabinets, unsigned and thus not in effect, close to a year after the National Assembly finally passed it into law in May 2011. The passage into law, the climax of an over two years journey in the two chambers of the National Assembly [...]