‘Many Nigerians now patronise herbal, spiritual homes’

National president, Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria, Alhaji Toyosi Raheem, has stated that many Nigerians now patronise herbal and spiritual homes because of what he referred to as low standard health care delivery system.

Speaking at the first annual scientific conference of the association, themed, Quality Management in Medical Laboratory Practice in a Depressed Economy, in Ilorin, Kwara State, he said many Nigerians were going outside the country for medical care due to the poor health care service in the country.

“The state of health care delivery in Nigeria is far below the expected standard and it is so when we compare it with the practice in other countries in Africa and advanced countries of the world.

“We recently had an opportunity to visit South Africa and Germany and assessed their health practices and we are really worried in Nigeria, about what our state of health care service is in Nigeria and that is why when you see people who have the means, at the simplest sign of ailment, travel out of the country.

“That is why those who are very poor patronise herbalists or traditional healers and those who do not believe in any of these two patronise spiritual homes because some of them have lost confidence in our health system in Nigeria. And many factors are responsible.

“So, for us, the standard of health care service is below the expected standards in Nigeria,” he said.

The laboratory scientist, who said that Nigeria’s annual budget allocation to health sector was below WHO recommendation of 15 per cent, added that not less than 10 per cent of the sum should go to medical laboratory science.

He also identified inter-professional bickering among medical practitioners and non-adherence to scheme of service and the rule of law as factors militating against effective health care delivery.

Raheem, who said that accurate medical treatment was impossible without proper diagnosis, added that government should rather provide free medical laboratory screening to people, than treatment because of high cost and required provision of state of art equipment.