BREAKING THE SILENCE, 2014 Breaking The Silence | Page 40

We met up with
the MD of Multi-
shield HMO, Lagos
and we ask about
his thoughts on
financing
healthcare in
Nigeria.
Please, sir can you introduce
yourself? How would you define the current
health sector in Nigeria?
Well, my name is Leke Oshunuiyi.
I'm a 1982 graduate of the great
rival of your institution, the senior
rival (laughs) – the University
College Hospital and the Medical
School University of Ibadan.
Since I graduated I have remained in
private practice because I have
always thought that the problem in
medicine was not manpower. I've
always believed that the problem is
funding, and for three decades and
more I have continued to be proven
right, and as we go along with this
interview you will realize why I say I
have been proven right – that the
issue is funding rather than
manpower or even infrastructure
because it is the funding that ties
everything together. At the risk of sounding
condescending, I would say it is
hyper-fragmented. That's the word I
will use with all the connotations
that go with that word: hyper-
fragmented! I'll just leave it that way
so that my colleagues would not be
up in arms against me.
AMSUL Digest 2014
So with where we are right now,
what hopes do you have for the
current health sector in Nigeria?
To start with, there is no such thing
as free health. If a politician mounts
the rostrum and says to you 'I will
give you free health', he is not
saying the truth because somebody
has to pay.
Let us look at examples all over the
world of where health systems work
and don't work; and what are the
cost implications. Let us look at the
UK- the budget for the 2013
National Health Service (NHS) was a
sum in excess of £120 billion or
over $200 billion (roughly £2,000
per inhabitant per annum). To put
that in perspective, the UK has a
population of about 6o million
people, with pipe-borne water, no
malaria, little or no HIV/AIDS or
Sickle-cell anaemia. In Nigeria, we
are about 3 times that figure, no
universal pipe borne water, poor
maternal and infant mortality
indices, illiteracy and the likes.
Now, the entire country of Nigeria
budgets $30 billion annually. Our
entire budget, with 3 times the
population and its attendant
problems is one-sixth of the UK's
health budget.