NMA Promises to Ensure Corrupt-free Health Workforce
The Nigerian Medical Association has promised to ensure that corruption becomes non-existent among healthcare workers.
The National President of NMA, Professor Bala Audu, gave the assurance on Wednesday in Abuja, during a media conference on the ‘State of the Nation’s Health Sector’.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the National Bureau of Statistics in conjunction with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, recently published a report titled ‘Corruption in Nigeria: Patterns and Trends Report’, which put the spotlight on corruption in the health sector.
According to the report, in 2023, about 56 per cent of Nigerians had at least one contact with a public official in the 12 months before the survey, while in the same year, 30 per cent of the figure had contact with doctors, nurses or midwives.
Another 15 per cent, it was noted had contact with other health workers with two per cent paying a bribe or asked to pay a bribe and had refused.
The report also indicated that of the 30 per cent of Nigerians who had contact with doctors, nurses or midwives, only four per cent paid a bribe or were asked to pay a bribe and refused.
Reacting to the report, Audu said the four per cent who paid a bribe or were asked to pay a bribe and refused was a worrisome figure.
“We believe that this figure is very worrisome and we are concerned about it and we are taking every measure to ensure that this is reduced to zero.
“However, it is important to point out that these figures show that the health sector, the provision particularly of care by doctors and nurses in the public sector is the least corruptible in this country.
“This is because the figures show that only 12 per cent are involved in this and it is the lowest figure for all public sectors in this country.”
He was, however, excited that among all public sector services, doctors and nurses provided the highest proportion of services to adult Nigerians.
Read Also:
Audu added that because the statistics were limited to adult Nigerians, it meant that the population of children and paediatric cases that doctors and nurses attended to were not captured.
He added, “The statistics showed that 30 per cent of adult Nigerians access services of doctors and nurses in the public sector without having to pay a bribe of any sort because the focus of the study was a study on corruption.’’
The NMA national president said that the 34 per cent represented the contacts and the services that doctors and nurses were able to provide to Nigerians, adding that doctors and nurses should actually be celebrated for being available in spite of the challenges they face amid brain drain.
He stated, “We are still the ones that are able to provide the highest level of care to Nigerians compared to any public sector in this country and we are the ones that have the least level of a tendency to be corruptible.
“It is a very common practice in our public health settings to see doctors and nurses actually contribute money in order to help indigent patients but this is often not reflected and I think there is also a need to paint that other side of the picture.
“There are also a number of private health facilities in this country that offer services to indigent patients when they cannot afford it, I think we also need research to bring that to light.”
Audu, however, commended the report, adding that it was good to do a comparative analysis to encourage those who were doing well so that they would do better and improve.
He also said that though the report focused on public facilities, the NMA would like a study that looked across both private and public facilities.
Audu added, “This is another thing the NMA wants to do on its own, but we are commenting on this because these organisations are highly respectable ones.
“We have to take seriously whatever comes from NBS and UNODC that is why we are taking this report very seriously.
“Our seriousness in taking this report is not to deny, but to find the root cause of the problem so that even though we are the ones doing the best, we want to make corruption come to zero.”
NAN reports that the survey is the third round of the Nigeria Corruption Survey and it marks a significant milestone in Nigeria’s ongoing efforts to combat corruption.
(NAN)
