Nigerian entrepreneurs take on country’s healthcare challenges as government looks on
Nigerian entrepreneurs are no longer waiting on the government to resolve the country’s healthcare challenges and are deploying innovative techniques designed to keep Nigerians healthy.
These Nigerian entrepreneurs are looking to big data to fight diseases, drive advocacy, awareness and bring care to more people in innovative ways, using new technologies to develop access and cures.
In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation ensuring that everyone has access to quality health is paramount.
More than 95 percent of people living in Nigeria do not have full coverage of essential health services and about 70 per cent of the country’s population still spend out-of-pocket for health services, according to Budgit, a platform that analyses Nigerian budgets and public data.
Even as the country is struggling with dilapidated infrastructural development, brain drain, underfunding, it worth saying that investing in Nigeria’s health systems is an opportunity to accelerate economic development and growth, driving contribution to saving millions of lives and moving the country closer to achieving objectives of national poverty reduction strategies.
However, some Nigerian entrepreneurs are making great contributions to the country’s health sector, and tackling some neglected areas of healthcare.
One of such entrepreneurs transforming the future of health
Chioma Nwakanma (@ Drzobo),
care is
a public health expert and the founder of SMILE With Me Foundation
As her contribution to the sector, Nwakanma is building a healthcare guide for every patient.
She provides a detailed understanding of past successes and current challenges in improving personal health-care access and quality in Nigeria. This idea has continued in its success even through the ever-changing and complex challenges of the healthcare industry.
She started on a local level and worked to build programmes with health systems through health campaigns by creating the “social needs care specialist”
Nwakanma looks into the wide gap between the health service providers and the public. This gap is responsible for many of the ill medical practices that is seen as a normal practice and are gradually claiming the lives of uninformed Africans.
“Hence my life’s commitment to using Social media health blogging and Community Public health education as tools to bridge the health gap in Africa” said.
Runcie Chidebe,
Similarly, executive director, Project PINK BLUE is improving, and subsequently measuring cancer healthcare access and quality, bridging the gap in the healthcare sector through his one of a kind initiative.
Project Pink Blue, a Non- Governmental Organisation (NGO) promoting cancer awareness and management and has emerged as an increasing priority alongside a heightened emphasis on advocacy for early detection. Last year, they won the prestigious World Cancer Day Spirit Award 2018 at the World Cancer Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for their world cancer day advocacy and collaborative spirit.
“Federal and State Governments of Nigeria should make cancer control a national health priority. There are a couple of major challenges facing cancer patients in Nigeria, some patients catch cancer early but cannot afford medical treatment. The other issue is that some people have no access to medical care for cancer, due to the lack of treatment facilities available,” Chidebe.
Today, between 10 – 30 percent of drugs sold in open and informal markets are fake, and others can be ineffective due to improper storage, a growing threat to Nigeria’s economy. To solve some of these challenges, Drugstoc operates an internationally accredited end-toend traceable supply chain with zero tolerance for fake drugs.
Chibuzo Opara co-founder and chief executive officer Drugstoc is a health economist, who has worked in different international and Nigerian companies on healthcare policy, healthcare management, healthcare financing and the business of healthcare.
Drugstoc was founded in 2015 and seeks to eliminate counterfeit drugs, increase access to pharmaceutical products and improve transparency in pricing for healthcare providers and the product supply chain in Nigeria. The drug procurement platform enables healthcare providers and professionals to purchase genuine pharmaceutical and healthcare products within 24hours.
“Drugs are of random simples, so fake drugs are very difficult to track, even if it is just 1 percent is too much because you do not know those that will be affected,” he said.
Nigeria faces a shortage of doctors, chief executive officer of Privedoc limited in Nigeria is also making it easier for people to get expert advice and access healthcare from medical specialists via mobile phone.
It’s critical to find new ways of spreading medical expertise. Larne says the platform can be helpful in rural areas where there aren’t many doctors and for low-income people too and in many cases, it
Olaitan Larne
can replace costly visits and save people months of waiting to get an appointment.
“We have invested about N250million into the business which includes the infrastructure, testing, the software’s and everything that supports it,” he said.
Nigeria’s health challenges have taught these entrepreneurs how to navigate complex situations when things go wrong. And it has shown them that it is important to have leaders who can evaluate a situation from different perspectives.