What A Loss! For Temitope Sanni, the birth of a set of triplets has
become more of a curse than blessing: Shortly after they were born, the
babies, all boys, died one after the other. Reason being that the
parents could not raise the N4,000 required of them to buy drugs.
Apparently because of the family’s indigent condition, the woman was delivered of the babies in the
parlour of the Face-Me-I-Face-You bungalow she and her husband share with others, at Ilogbo, near Sango-Ota, Ogun State.
The home delivery was carried out by her niece. Seeing that the kids
were too fragile, the mother and father were advised to take them to a
clinic. At a nearby clinic, Damisile Medical Centre, the family was
advised to rush the babies to a general hospital.
With N2,500 as all they could gather, the family rushed the babies to
the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), but were told
that there were no beds to admit the babies and their mother.
The mother and father dashed out of LASUTH and went to the Federal
Government-owned Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). By the time
they arrived at LUTH, one of the babies had died. At LUTH, they were
told to go buy some drugs for the remaining two boys. The total cost of
the drugs was put at N4,000.
Having paid transport fare from their home, first to LASUTH and then to
LUTH, the total money left on the mother, a petty trader, and her
husband was N1,850.
In frustration, they left for home hoping to raise money. By the time
they got home some 30 minutes after, another of the boys had died. Few
hours after, the third also died.
The Minister of Health, Prof. C.O. Onyebuchi Chukwu had recently
lamented lamented that at present, there is no mechanism for emergency
care in the country.
He noted that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which is
voluntary, covers people in the public service only. Plans to expand it
to accommodate more people, especially in the informal sector are still
being worked out.
The minister, at an interactive session with health writers in Lagos,
also disclosed that there were plans to make the present voluntary NHIS
mandatory for every Nigerian citizen so that through it, many poor
Nigerians can get health care.
``I am proud that the NHIS is working and we hope to make it mandatory, either by tax system or contribution,’’ he said.
Responding to a question on how to address demands by hospitals that
patients pay before attending to emergencies, he said, “No hospital
under my charge insists on payment before attending to emergencies”, but
for the private hospitals, we encourage them."
He disclosed that a policy that will address that is currently being
formulated, but it will go through a lot of process including the
Presidential Summit on Universal Health Coverage.
His words, “What I am proposing is that there has to be some kind of
mechanisms for emergencies, which government can guarantee. That way,
you and I can fall back on that because emergency could affect anyone.
"You may be enjoying a meal and accidentally, you have a bone stuck
somewhere in your throat and your life is in danger when you never
thought it could happen. You can have emergency at anytime and under
emergency, no one prepares for it.”
Chukwu said under these circumstances, the only way is to rely on
insurance, if the affected person is an insurance policy holder and
secondly, we are trying to develop a special fund that can be guaranteed
by government.
He however appealed to Nigerians to take up some form of insurance.
If people fail to take insurance, Chukwu said there will be a problem,
because someone must provide the funds for emergency care, otherwise
hospitals handling emergencies without payment will ultimately close
down.
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