Private hospitals to the rescue

Editorial

It certainly did not require a futurologist to predict that Nigeria’s Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 control would not be able to sustain for long its earlier directive barring private hospitals from treating infected patients. The PTF meant well.

The pandemic is novel and explosively infectious. Patients require the highest levels of professional medical expertise, which the country’s healthcare system is barely striving to cope with.

Allowing indiscriminate treatment of the disease by all categories of health facilities could aggravate the danger of exponential increase in infections and deaths.

Yet, the country’s coronavirus crisis continued to flare daily. On May 4, President Muhammadu Buhari eased the lockdown he had earlier imposed on Lagos and Ogun states as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, and emplaced, instead, an 8pm to 6am curfew.

Between then and Wednesday, May 13, the number of new cases rose from 2,558 to 4,758; deaths grew from 87 to 158 although, on a positive note, the number of recoveries hit 959 from 400.

Even then, experts warn that the incidence of the disease is yet to reach its peak in the country and that things will most likely worsen before getting better.

Consequently faced with shrinking bed spaces at treatment isolation centres and the growing strain on the public health infrastructure, the PTF announced that it has accredited some private hospitals in Lagos, the epicenter of the crisis, and other parts of the country, to treat COVID-19 patients.

In doing this, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said the PTF had dispatched teams of experts to various locations across the country to assess the designated private hospitals and ensure they meet the requisite protocols.

The private hospitals approved to treat COVID-19 patients must, among other conditions, have the requisite qualified staff, including infectious disease doctors as well as nurses and cleaners trained in infection control protocols.

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We expect that such private facilities will also meet set standards of hygiene; patient care; personal protective equipment for staff; welfare; security and capacity to cater for non-COVID-19 patients without exposing them to danger.

It is important that these requirements be scrupulously monitored and enforced for compliance so that this commendable proactive step taken to solve a problem does not itself become a source of compounding the situation, leading to increased infections.

This would of course mean that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in particular effectively supervises its staff at all levels so that quality control measures are not compromised.

This development demonstrates vividly that evolving a healthcare system capable of effectively and efficiently meeting the needs of the vast majority of Nigerians will necessarily involve policy measures that encompass both the public and private sectors.

While governments must take the lead in providing qualitative and affordable healthcare for the citizenry, it does not have sufficient resources to carry this burden alone. The private sector must be facilitated and strengthened to offer complementary care.

A  2015 study indicates that as at 2014 there were an estimated 3,000 private hospitals and clinics in the country although the figures are imprecise and unreliable. Accurate data in this regard is critical for meaningful planning for the future of the health sector.

Again, a majority of these private medical centres are small facilities owned by individuals and with capacity for at most 10 bed spaces.

There is certainly the need to encourage clusters of health practitioners to team up to set up more viable private health facilities with requisite financial and technical support to enable these run as successful business models.

Ironically, the current tragic coronavirus crisis may offer an opportunity to strengthen investment in the private sector of the health industry, boost jobs in that critical area and enhance the overall capacity and efficacy of healthcare delivery in Nigeria.