At a time when Nigerians’ hope for improvement in the nation’s health sector has been dimmed by the paltry budgetary allocations to the sector, tasking Nigerians to desist from seeking medical care abroad might sound awkward.

But this was President Muhammadu Buhari’s shocking message to Nigerians on Friday, January 3, 2020. Represented by the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, at the inauguration and handover of a project designed to  check flooding and gully erosion at the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital in Abakaliki, the president said: “Nigerians have suffered so much going abroad for medical treatment. This is not good for us and it must stop because we can’t afford it again.”

The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said that the state government will deploy technology to aid precision, faster and smarter healthcare services in all healthcare facilities as a means of achieving its health and environment mandate.

Sanwo-Olu who disclosed this while declaring open a three-day Smart Health Technical Symposium on e-Health, themed “Lagos State Smart Health Information Platform, (SHIP)” stressed that the present administration was prepared to leverage on technology to improve healthcare delivery in the state.

The Medical Guild has urged the Lagos State Government to replace doctors who have exited the service of the Lagos State Government to avert the imminent crisis in the state’s health sector. The Chairman of the Guild, Dr Oluwajimi Sodipo, at a briefing held on Tuesday in Lagos lamented that an estimated 2,650 doctors were insufficient to cater for the population of Lagos State.

“On average, one to three doctors leave the service of the Lagos State Government every month. It is, indeed, worrisome that in the last two years, over 600 doctors had left the employment of the state government without being replaced.

The Federal Ministry of Health, through the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has announced the inclusion of three new laboratories into national yellow fever/measles/rubella laboratory network.

According to a statement signed by the Director-General, NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu on Tuesday, the three new laboratories are the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Edo State, the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu and NCDC National Reference Laboratory, Abuja.

The mortuary of the Federal Medical Centre, Gusau, Zamfara State, was in the early hours of Tuesday gutted by fire. The mortuary, which is the only one being used by the hospital to keep dead bodies, was completely burnt down by the fire, which started around 3.30am.

Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu on Tuesday  appealed to resident doctors in the state to call off their strike.

About 190 doctors, under the auspices of the Resident Doctors Association of the University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital, on Friday embarked on an indefinite strike in  protest  against the  failure of the  state government to pay them  their six months’ salaries. It  was learnt that  the state government reacted by engaging consultants to attend to patients.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released urgent health challenges for the next decade, urging world leaders to invest more resources in core health priorities and systems. WHO, in a statement on Wednesday in Lagos, said failure of world leaders to invest adequately in health priorities puts lives, livelihoods and economies in jeopardy.

“With the deadline for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals quickly approaching, the United Nations General Assembly has underscored that the next 10 years must be the decade of action.

Nigeria’s vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, on Monday, said Nigeria has the highest prevalence rate of cancer cases in West Africa. He said about 72,000 of over 100,000 cancer patients reported annually, lost their lives.

Mr Osinbajo disclosed this on Monday when he laid the foundation stone of Kano Cancer Centre at Muhammad Buhari Specialist Hospital, Giginyu. The new centre is planned to be a replica of the World Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. “WHO reports that in 2018, four per cent of deaths in Nigeria were caused by cancer. Nigeria’s cancer cases are about 15 per cent of cases in West Africa. In the whole of West Africa, we take 15 per cent. So, there is a major problem with cancer in Nigeria.

The staff and management of Nigeria’s Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) between 2016 and 2017 helped themselves with several ‘irregular’ and unapproved allowances totalling N6.8 billion, a recently released audit report has revealed.

These infractions were recorded during the reign of Usman Yusuf, the controversially sacked NHIS Executive Secretary, according to the 2017 Annual Audit from the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (OAGF). The report adds a new layer to the barrage of allegations of fraudulent activities that tainted Mr Yusuf’s trenure.

In my decades of practice as musclo-skeletal physiotherapist, I have come to find out that 50 per cent of female patients I treat, about 26 per cent who were nurses were in their late fifties and had presented with very rickety back that had always been accompanied with distressful pain.

Have you ever paused to ask why there is an alarming decrease in the population of older and seasoned nurses in our health institutions? Yes, some of them have gone to their early retirement. Some have switch over to less stressful areas such as teaching in the nursing schools.