Migration has been implicated as constituting a drain-pipe for the erosion of human resources vital for national development in developing countries. One of the sectors in the Nigerian economy that is seriously affected by emigration is healthcare delivery. While qualified personnel constitutes one of the major ingredients of instituting and maintaining an efficient healthcare delivery system, there are other factors such as funding, infrastructure and health education that are vital components of a functional healthcare delivery system.
Migration is associated with increased global wealth. This wealth is generated by the corps of highly-skilled and semi-skilled professionals. What has remained contentious is the distribution of this wealth within the global system. While the multi-skilled Nigerian diaspora creates wealth for, and makes enormous contributions towards development in their host economies, their home country seemingly holds the short end of the stick. However, there appears to be a trickle-down effect on Nigeria through the investment potentials of its diaspora. But the conditions that created the avenue for emigration must either be ameliorated or eliminated for the restoration of confidence in the home economy.
Despite the fact that the targets of migrant-receiving countries are the highly-skilled and semi-skilled professionals, their skills are, nevertheless, honed to higher standards in the process of their sojourn abroad. Ordinarily, part of the trickle-down effects of emigration ought to be the transposition of these skills in the home economies to aid industrialisation.
But the continued underdevelopment of Nigeria and the absence of the Nigerian diaspora in the country’s development agenda have demonstrated the untenability of this assumption.
This chapter examines the selected sectors of the Nigerian economy from which we derived our hypotheses. It evaluates how inadequate personnel through the brain drain have undermined efficiency in Nigeria’s healthcare delivery system and the trend of diaspora-led investment initiatives as well as the remittance portfolio within the ambit of extant domestic investment incentives. It also interrogates the interface between the diaspora and the transference of technological knowledge within the gridlock of global intellectual property rights regime.
159 4.2 BRAIN DRAIN AND HEALTH- CARE CHALLENGES IN NIGERIA
The Nigerian health sector is one of the major sectors adversely affected by the mass emigration of health professionals. The Nigerian health sector is virtually bereft of the optimal number of relevant crop of qualified health personnel to drive healthcare delivery to the teeming population. This is so because many qualified health personnel have emigrated abroad. As it is, Nigeria is one of the major health-staff-exporting countries in Africa.
According to Uneke et al (2008), between April 2000 and March 2001 about 347 Nigerian nurses emigrated legally to Britain. The corresponding period that is, between April 2001 and 2002, 432 nurses emigrated to Britain. While Nigeria is denied of the vital services of its health professionals, the West and the oil-rich states of the Middle East are the prime beneficiaries (Mbanefoh 2007:2). As the health sector is an integral part of the Nigerian society, and, therefore, subject to its vagaries, the depletion of its human resources is induced by the same set of push, pull and suction factors generated internally and internationally.
The effect of the human capital loss in Nigeria’s health sector is locatable in the increasing inability of the country to subdue its numerous health challenges which contribute to low life expectancy. The medical brain drain is not peculiar to Nigeria. Indeed it is the rule rather than the exception in the whole of Africa. The depth of the problem is such that Dr Lalla Ben Barka apocalyptically predicted that “in 25 years, Africa will be empty of brains”
(cited in Mbanefoh 2007:5).
Table 4.1: Basic Demographic, Health and Socio-Economic Indicators of Nigeria
Indicators Estimated / Site
Area 923,968sqkm
Population 140 million (2007)
No. of LGAs 774
No. of States 36
Crude Birth Rate 40.6 per 1000
Rate of Natural Increase 45 per 1000 Population Doubling Time 23 years
160 Population Growth Rate % 3.2% (2007)
Life Expectancy at Birth 52years (1992); 54.0 (2007)
Literacy Rate 64.2 (2007)
Per Capita GDP (USD) 1,256.6 (2007)
Food Energy Intake Adult Equivalent 2100 Cals. 2900 Cals.
Poverty Incidence 65.6 (1996); 54.4 (2004)
Population in Poverty 67.11 Million (1996); 68.70 (2004) Under Five Mortality Rate 137 per 100,000 Live Births
Source: NBS 2009: 201; CBN 2007:xliv
Nigeria is home to over 140 million people with population growth rate of between 2.8 and 3.2 percent as at 2007. More than half of Nigerians are categorised as poor with official incidence of poverty put at 54.0 percent (CBN Annual Report 2007: xliv). What the interpretation of these statistics immediately reveals is that the unfortunate economic status of over half of Nigeria’s population imperils their access to adequate healthcare services. The imperilment is deepened by the skewed interplay of increasing population and decreasing healthcare providers as a result of sustained emigration. Going by the WHO recommendation of 20 physicians per 100,000 people or one physician to 5,000 people, it has been impossible for Nigeria, in the face of the mass exodus of its medical personnel, to meet this ratio of medical well being. Before the advent of medical brain drain, the doctor-population ratio was a far cry from the WHO ideal. Mbanefoh. (2007: 3) informs that as at 1979, Nigeria had a doctor-population ratio of 1:24,607. Nigeria would have surpassed the WHO threshold if not for brain drain. Going by the number of physicians in good standing, that is, those who renewed their annual practicing licence, the 2007 doctor/population ratio was 1:10,000.
Table 4.2 showcases the global critical shortages of doctors, nurses and midwives as at 2006.
Africa was worst-hit, as it still required 139 percentage increase in its present stock to reach acceptable limits. The trend since then had deteriorated, with greater increase in the demand for African physicians and decaying infrastructure for training them. Out of 46 African countries evaluated, 36 of them, including Nigeria, had critical shortages requiring urgent attention. Indeed, globally, Africa is the worst-hit as it accounted for 36 out of 57 countries designated by the WHO as suffering from critical shortage of health professionals.
161 Table 4. 2: Estimated Critical Shortages of Doctors, Nurses and Midwives,
(By WHO Region) (2006)
NA= Not applicable; Source: World Health Report 2006:13
By 2010, the ratio of doctor-population in Nigeria ought to have met the WHO standard or at least be close to it considering the enormous resources Nigeria had earned from oil but this is not the case. Nigeria is still very far from meeting the WHO doctor-population benchmark. The reason lies in the brain drain that mops up medical professionals and the rate of population growth, which ranged between 2.8 and 3.2 percent with very high migratory flows made it impossible for the wide gap in the ratio to be narrowed. As Mbanefoh (2007:3) opines:
Medical professionals, particularly the doctors, have remained a scare commodity in the health systems in Africa. Filling vacancies created by the emigration of experienced doctors tend to be difficult due to their increased demand by the developed nations and rich Arab countries.
The scarcity of health professionals in Nigeria and Africa and the wide gap in the doctor-population ratio are not because these professionals are not produced or are inadequately produced, but because they are readily snapped up by the DCs. The major reason in the hole in the manpower formation in the health sector is the state-centred neglect of the sector. Since 1980s, the DCs have variously implemented variants of “quality – WHO Region Number of
Countries
In Countries with Shortages Total With
Shortages
Total Stock Estimated Shortages
Percentage Increase Required
Africa 46 36 590,198 817,992 139
Americas 35 5 93,603 37,886 40
Southeast Asia 11 6 2,332,054 1,164,001 50
Europe 52 0 NA NA NA
Eastern Mediterranean
21 7 312,613 306,031 98
Western Pacific 27 3 27,260 32,560 119
World 192 57 3,355,728 2,358,470 70
162 selective immigration polices”. These policies not only enabled them to substantially relax the quotas for highly skilled personnel but also attract and retain targeted skilled professionals for national development (Docquier and Rapoport 2007:4).
The Nigerian health system consists of orthodox, alternative and traditional systems of healthcare delivery. For various reasons, these three systems are patronised by Nigerians in their pursuit of good health and longer life. The Nigerian government recognises and regulates the activities of these systems (AHWO 2008:9). Within Nigeria’s orthodox health system it operates a three-tier hierarchical healthcare system comprising primary, secondary and tertiary tiers. Lambo (1983:19); FMOH (2004:9-10) differentiate these tiers thus: the primary tier occupies the base of the hierarchy and represents the first point of contact between the patient and the healthcare delivery system. The institutional outlets for the dispensation of primary healthcare services are private and public health clinics, centres and dispensaries and maternities. The secondary tier covers referral healthcare institutions and includes general, cottage and mission hospitals. The tertiary tier includes teaching and specialist hospitals. Lambo (1983:191) identifies the major challenge of healthcare service delivery as the shortage of skilled health personnel especially doctors.
In 2006, the problem seemed to have deepened with the shortage of health workers a key problem plaguing Nigeria’s healthcare sector. In WHO’s 2006 classification of countries with critical human resource shortage, Nigeria was included amongst the 57 countries so designated (WHO Report 2006:12). Sub-Saharan Africa was hit most by this shortage as 36 of the countries in the region made the list. WHO estimated that for all these countries designated as suffering from human resources shortage in their healthcare delivery system to reach the target levels of health worker availability, an additional 2.4 million professionals would be required globally (WHO Report 2006:12).
The explanation of the shortage in the levels of health worker availability in Nigeria is not so much a matter of institutional incapacity, as there has been consistency in the admission of prospective students into health teaching institutions, but principally a product of brain drain. Using the University College Hospital Ibadan (UCHI) as a case study to buttress the debilitating and rippling effect of brain drain on Nigeria’s health sector, Mbanefoh (2007:4), records that between early 1980s and 1987, the UCHI lost almost 40 percent of its senior doctors, with the Department of Surgery worst hit. For instance, out of 23 lecturers in 1984, 18 of them had left by 1989 leaving only five lecturers to man the department. Flowing from this development student intake plummeted from 274 in 1984 to 124 in 1989. The ripple effect of this seeming mass exodus of health professionals has
163 continued to bog down advances in healthcare delivery in Nigeria.
As at 2007, there were 24,879 healthcare facilities in Nigeria with combined bed spaces of 97,567. Also there were 55,376 registered physicians (comprising 52,408 Nigerians and 2,968 non-Nigerians) and 219, 089 registered nurses and midwives (NBS 2007:34).
These numbers of physicians and nurses represent registrants in the professional organizations of these medical disciplines and not necessarily those manning these hospitals.
AHWO (2008: 9) affirms that out of the total number of Nigerian doctors (52,408) on the medical register as at December 2007, only 14,000 doctors paid their annual practicing licensing fee for that year. Similarly, only a fraction of nurses and midwives paid their annual practicing fees. This means that only 14,000 doctors were eligible to practice according to statutory requirements. AHWO (2008: 9) has contended that this number represents the actual human resources available to Nigeria’s health sector as “... the medical and indeed the nursing register has never been pruned of those doctors that died or have migrated out of the profession or into foreign countries”. Currently Nigeria has 23 fully accredited and five partially accredited medical schools. Accreditation of medical schools in Nigeria is the exclusive preserve of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) which derives it powers vide Medical and Dental Practitioners Act Cap 221 (now Cap M8) Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1990 (http://www.mdcnigeria.org). There are also 86 approved schools of nursing, 77 approved schools of midwifery, 12 laboratory schools, 6 schools of physiotherapy, 5 schools of radiography, 9 schools of pharmacy, 19 schools of pharmacy technology, 40 schools of health records, 13 schools of community health officers, 43 schools of dental technology, 6 schools of dental therapy and 3 schools of optometry (AHWO 2008:10).
Despite these institutional frameworks to produce health professionals, the rate of production has been slow and the rate of poaching aggressive and high, especially Nigeria doctors and nurses. Between 2001 and 2005, the combined graduate turn-out by the country’s medical schools was 8,840 doctors. Within the same period a total of 1,677 pharmacists were produced (NBS 2009:285).
Notwithstanding the lofty policies of Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health about strategies to promote healthcare delivery system, several challenges face it. The core of this challenge is human resources needed to push these policies through. The unconducive working environment and low prospects of professional satisfaction in Nigeria and the tempting remuneration package abroad have combined to deepen Nigeria’s healthcare delivery dilemma. The Secretary-General of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr
164 Kenneth Okoro in an interview with a Nigerian tabloid averred that “the health sector remains deplorable without any significant progress. The indices for health remain poor”. He blamed this state of affairs on poor motivation of available human resources which fuels brain drain (Thomas 2008).
Table 4.3 shows the current nominal and regional distribution of health workforce. It is important to note that these figures represent the total names as contained in the registers of these various professional bodies and not necessarily the practitioners on ground. The regional distribution reflects where they are domiciled; that is, the branch of the professional bodies that registered them.
165 Table 4.3: Nominal and Regional Distribution of Health Workforce
(2007)
Health
Worker Categories Number
Regional Distribution (Percentage)
North-Central North-East North-West South-East South-South South-West
Physicians 52,408 9.73 4.06 8.35 19.59 14.37 43.9
Nurses 128,918 16.4 11.65 13.52 15.29 27.75 15.35
Radiographers 840 14.3 3.66 5.97 15.0 18.3 43
Pharmacists 13,199 19.94 3.8 7.79 11.74 12.39 44
Physiotherapists 1,473 10.8 2.73 8.32 8.58 7.93 62
Medical Lab Sctst. 12,703 6.82 1.72 3.6 35.26 23.89 29
Env. & Health W 4,280 9.39 11.27 18.94 12.36 15.69 32.08
Health Records Officers
1,187 13.34 4.85 11.6 14.64 29.9 26
Dental Technologists
505 14.08 5.92 5.92 12.96 16.62 44.5
Dental Therapists 1,012 13.19 10.29 21.88 10.19 12.99 31.5
Pharmacy Technician
5,483 6.17 9.12 18 8.58 11.8 46
Source: AHWO 2008:23
166 The bleak state of Nigeria’s health sector is deepened by lack of qualified health professionals to drive the healthcare delivery system. Human resources are the key components and driving forces of healthcare system and not just the funding and infrastructures. Adequate funding and relevant infrastructures only assist the human resources to actualise set goals. That is why the progressive funding of Nigeria’s health sector has not yielded the desired result. Again, no matter the amount of remittances sent by Nigerian doctors to the country, healthcare system will remain comatose and life expectancy projections will continue to go downhill because the remittance receipts can never take the position of healthcare providers.
There is no doubt that the Nigerian healthcare delivery system is facing a serious crisis. The explanation for the crisis is not domiciled in a single factor but in a combination of factors that interact in a complex way to coalesce into forces that push away healthcare managers. Dovlo (2003:1) captures these factors to include:
… the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the re-emergence of old communicable diseases such as TB [tuberculosis] and Malaria, and the apparent paradox of increasing levels of disorders linked to changing lifestyles and degenerative diseases. In addition are perennial problems affecting health systems that stem from the economic difficulties in our countries leading to very low funding of health services and deterioration of health services infrastructure.
The economic crisis that affected African economies including that of Nigeria in the 1980s prompted the active intervention of the IFIs in these economies. The intervention of these IFIs in Africa’s domestic economies was the watershed in the crisis that eroded the health sector. The reform package of SAP had conditionalities that spawned the ground for the underfunding and subsequent collapse of the health infrastructure.
The emphasis and insistence of the IFIs on the removal of subsidies on social services including health and the acquiescence of the Nigerian government led to the drastic reduction in budgetary allocation to the health sector and the reversal and crisis that subsequently engulfed the sector. The budgetary allocation to the health sector plummeted from N350.4 million in 1986 to N235.4 in 1987 when the federal budget reflected the effects of SAP (CBN Statistical Bulletin 2004:217-224). The underfunding of the health sector, as other social services in accordance with the IMF conditionalities, had rippling effects on both institutional capacity and human resource retention in the health sectors. As Mbanaefoh (2007:3-4) avers,
“the resultant under-funding meant that facilities for teaching, research and service delivery
167 were inadequately provided and maintained, researches were under-funded and personnel were poorly remunerated. The professionals became restive”.
It was this restiveness that acted as a push factor to the mass emigration of Nigeria’s medical professionals which destabilised the health sector leading to serious reversals in the modest gains recorded in the eradication of communicable and non-communicable diseases before then. As Orubuloye and Oni (1996:303) observe,
In the first five years of the structural adjustment program, 1986 -1990, government allocation of resources to the health sector ranged from just US 42 cents to US 62 cents per capita, an amount which was grossly inadequate to treat an attack of malaria, or a mere 1.6 to 1.9 percent of the total federal government expenditure during the 1980 – 90.
The drastic reduction in budgetary allocation to the health sector meant that the provision of infrastructural facilities as well as distribution of routine drugs in hospitals which had hitherto been free were no longer feasible. According to UNICEF sources (cited in Orubuloye and Oni 1996: 303-304) infant mortality rate (IMR) in Nigeria rose from its 1988 level of 104 per thousand to 114 per thousand in 1992 and childhood mortality degenerated from 174 per thousand to 191 per thousand during the same period. The reversal was despite the national health policy introduced in 1988. The National Health Policy (NHP) had lofty ideals which were embodied in its quest to improve the health of Nigerians in a sustainable manner based on primary healthcare (PHC) (Nnamuchi 2007:3). The goal of PHC to improve the health of all Nigerians through sustainable health system that is promotive protective, preventive, restorative and rehabilitative of socially and economically productive and fulfilling life to every individual not only fell short of expectations but remained elusive as Nigeria was demonstrably unable to meet WHO benchmarks in almost all departments of health well-being (Nnamuchi 2007: 3). The dearth of qualified doctors to spearhead both the implementation of new policies of the federal government and the consolidation of existing national health policies owing to mass emigration of qualified doctors undermined progress in the health sector. The effect was that “the overall availability, accessibility, quality and utilization of health services decreased significantly or stagnated in the past decade” (Uneke et al 2008).
The overall sectoral implication was that the health sector budget got its financing from charges on patients to augment what the government had provided. In essence, the government no longer provided the capital outlay it had previously provided. But the
socio-168 economic realities in terms of the level of poverty prevailing in the country and the long tradition of free Medicare (introduced during the oil boom era) created certain rigidities that were unsupportive of such projections. The devaluation of the Nigerian currency unit, which was at par with the US Dollar prior to SAP, by as much as 500 percent instead of 60 percent originally planned meant that the prices of every thing in the country skyrocketed. The import-dependent nature of the Nigerian economy led to a contentious scale of preference between personal and family daily survival costs and costs of Medicare (Gana 1990: 97). The effects of this development were such that:
Most government hospitals were almost deserted, as the number of people attending them dwindled rapidly, partly because most government hospitals have been reduced to mere consulting clinics for lack of equipment and drugs. Many patients were attempting home cures or had turned to the traditional medical system or to the faith healing churches.
(Orubuloye and Oni 1996: 303).
The underfunding of the health sector directly facilitated the conditions that induced job dissatisfaction, unavailability of requisite medical equipment vital for diagnoses and treatment and unconducive operational environment as well as the mass emigration of high-quality medical personnel critical for Nigeria’s health sector development.
Even though the crisis in the government healthcare system led to the proliferation of private medical practice and the establishment of private hospitals and clinics (Orubuloye and Oni 1996: 304, Nnamuchi 2007:4), it did not lead to improvement in the healthcare indices of the country. The reason for the relatively low impact of the proliferation of private hospitals and clinics on the healthcare indices of Nigeria inhered from three interrelated scenarios: one, the physicians that operated the government healthcare facilities were the same ones that set up and operated those private clinics and in most cases, one physician serviced several clinics; two, these clinics were more of economic stop-gap measures to augment the salaries of physicians, which like the Naira, had been eroded by the logic of devaluation; and three, the setting up of hospitals and clinics was motivated by capitalist consideration of profit.
Therefore, only patients with the wherewithal were able to access their services. Most of the private hospitals and clinics are unofficial extensions of government health institutions in more ways than one. Most of these doctors are employees of government health institutions and unethically use their positions to canvass for, or recommend, their private hospitals as referrals for diagnosed sicknesses that equipment for their management are either sabotaged
169 or unavailable in government hospitals. On most occasions, institutional sabotage to protect their private healthcare business interests partly explained the lack of changes in public health institutions in spite of billion of Naira in budgetary allocation to the health sector. But again, it is not the provision of diagnostic and other equipment in the health sector that spawned and sustained the crisis in the sector (although they are intervening variables) but the dearth of medical personnel as a result of their mass emigration to the developed economies.
170 Table 4.4a: Characteristics and Trends Analysis of Health Expenditure in Nigeria, 1998 – 2002 (N Million)
Description 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Total Health Expenditure (THE) 157,081.13 179,891.20 215,209.13 256,283.42 278,732.15 General Govt. Expenditure (GGE) 23,502.13 29,882.85 40,391.25 69,765.96 60,211.87
Federal 15,199.00 16,866.03 22,781.25 45,078.14 34,538.73
State 6,162.13 6,486.68 13,552.27 20,417.09 20,660.43
Local 2,141.00 6,530.14 4,057.73 4,270.73 5,012.71
Private Expenditure 113,028 125,096.40 139,918.84 172,248.41 201,416.28
Firms 4,308 6,313.96 10,046.77 14,646.75 17,817.91
Household 108,720 118,782.40 129,872.07 157,601.66 183,598.37
Donors 20,551 24,911.96 34,899.04 14,296.05 17,104.00
Growth Rate of Nominal THE - 14.52 19.63 19.09 8.76
Exchange Rate (N/US$1.00) 21.8861 92.6934 102.1052 111.9433 120.9702
HE: Ratios
GDP (Million N) Population (thousands) THE/GDP
Govt/THE HHD/THE Per Capita THE
2,882,310
108,635 5.45 14.96 69.21 1,445.953
3,322,030
111,681 5.42 16.61 66.03 1,445.95
4,902,800
114,746 4.39 18.77 60.35 1,655.92
5,702,650 117,823
4.49 27.22 61.50 1,981.03
5,927,680 120,911 4.70 21.60 65.87 2,359.12
Source: NHA 2005: 26
171 Table 4.4b: Characteristics and Trend Analysis of Health Expenditure in Nigeria: 2003 - 2005 (N Million)
Description 2003 2004 2005
Total Health Expenditure (THE) 661,662.16 788,723.91 976,687.60
General Govt. Expenditure (GGE) 123,681.76 208,207.86 254,174.42
Federal 47,026.82 115,068.86 130,760.24
State 48,022.77 56,963.53 78,778.28
Local 28,632.19 36,175.47 44,635.90
Private Expenditure 537,980.38 580,516.05 722,513.18
Household 489,785.11 518,409.62 656,545.51
Firms 20,323.11 26,068.46 29,670.97
Development Partners 27,872.16 36,037.98 36,296.70
GDP (Billions) 5,403.01 9,913.52 11,411.07
Population (Thousands) 128,569 132,273 136,683
Growth Rate of Nominal THE 37.38 19.20 23.83
Exchange Rate (N/US$1.00) 129.3565 133.5004 132.1
HE: Ratios THE/GDP Govt./THE HHHE/THE Per Capita THE
Per Capita HHHE (from NLSS)
12.25 18.69 74.02 5,146.36 3,835.58
7.96 26.40 65.73 5,962.85 3,946.07
8.56 26.02 67.22 7,177.15 4,857.61 Source: NHA 2009: 16; CBN Statistical Bulletin (2004:402); CBN Annual report 2006:xl)
172 Figure 2: Characteristics of Health Expenditure in Nigeria, 1998-2005
(N million)
Source: NHA 2005: 26
What the data on Nigeria’s Total Health Expenditure (THE) (see Table 4.4a and b and Figure 2 above) from 1998-2005 show is consistent upward trend. However, the depreciation of the Nigerian currency obviates the supposed gains of the nominal upward trend in health budgets. From N157.1 billion in 1998 THE rose by 14.52% in 1999 to translate to N179.9 billion. Between 1999 and 2000, THE again grew by 19.63 percent to come up to N215.2 billion in 2000 and also appreciated between 2000 and 2001 by 19.09 percent to settle at N256.3 billion in 2001. However, the growth rate of THE slowed down between 2001 and 2002 as it grew by 8.76 percent to settle at N278.7 billion in 2002. There was exponential rise in the growth rate of THE as it grew by 137.38 percent. Thus, in 2003, THE came up to N661.67 billion. Between 2003 and 2004, THE grew by 19.20 percent representing N788.72 billion in 2004. The growth in THE continued in 2005 with the rate being 23.83 percent or N976.69 billion. There are two problems with the trend of health expenditure: one, the government share of THE is abysmally low. What this means is that government is a fringe player in the health sector; two, the consistent depreciation of the Nigerian currency against the dollar means that, in actuality, the budgetary allocation to the health sector is still too low to sustain health professionals.
0.00 200,000.00 400,000.00 600,000.00 800,000.00 1,000,000.00 1,200,000.00 1998
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Donors Private Expenditure
General Government Expenditure Total Health Expenditure
173 Figure 3: Compositional Analysis of Health Expenditure in Nigeria,
1998-2005 (N Million)
Source: NHA 2005: 26
Figure 4a Contributions of Government Tiers to THE
Source: NHA 2005: 26 0.00
200,000.00 400,000.00 600,000.00 800,000.00 1,000,000.00 1,200,000.00
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Total Health Expenditure General Government Expenditure
Private Expenditure Donors
0.00 50,000.00 100,000.00 150,000.00 200,000.00 250,000.00 300,000.00
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
NMillion
General Govt. Expenditure (GGE) Federal State Local
174 Figure 4b Contributions of the Private Sector to THE
Source: NHA 2005: 26
Figure 3 above showcases the compositional analysis of health expenditure in Nigeria. One basic fact in the analysis is the consistent growth in the health expenditure of all the tiers. The highest chunk of THE was through private expenditure.
Figures 4a and 4b capture the composition of the contributions of both the three tiers of government and the sub-sectors within the private expenditure category. As the graph depicts, while the federal government made the highest contribution to the GGE, the individual households (comprising the people) contributed the highest to the private expenditure portfolio.
To address the shortfalls arising from government expenditure on health, a new insurance policy was introduced under the auspices of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Act in 1999. The NHIS, therefore, was a strategy to introduce a new source of healthcare financing that would reduce the cost burden on individuals as well as improve the quality, availability and affordability of health services in Nigeria. It thus encompasses both government and private sector employees as well as the informal sector. Even though the NHIS has not finally covered all sectors and the entire country, it promises to be a veritable source of health financing and it is estimated that 5.3 million Nigerians are already benefiting from it (Muanya 2010).
Since 2003, the contribution of NHIS to THE has been growing. Health Insurance Expenditure (HIE) grew from about N15.66 billion in 2003 to N18.79 billion in 2004
0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000 500,000 600,000 700,000 800,000
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
N Million
Private Expenditure Firms Household