GI-ESCR launched the report ‘The failure of commercialised healthcare in Nigeria during the COVID-19 pandemic’ with a press conference in Lagos, Nigeria

The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Justice & Empowerment Initiatives and Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) launched a new report titled: “The failure of commercialised healthcare in Nigeria during the COVID-19 pandemic. Discrimination and inequality in the enjoyment of the right to health”.

The launch was held in a hybrid format, both online and at the CAPPA office in Lagos with 36 people attending on site and 21 online on March 2nd.

The report exposes how the commercialisation of healthcare in Nigeria is amongst the main factors undermining the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The document details how governmental policies and international development actors have encouraged the growth of private and commercial healthcare since the late 1980s. It analyses how the marketised healthcare system was largely unprepared to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, with several impacts on the right to health. As a result, the report urges the Nigerian government to prioritise the provision of public healthcare services for all and reverse current policies intended to encourage higher participation of for-profit healthcare actors.

The report demonstrates that the years of commercialisation left the Nigerian healthcare system without enough medical facilities, personnel and equipment, a situation which was only worsened by the pandemic. Similarly, the socioeconomic inequalities preventing universal access to quality healthcare were also worsened during the pandemic when many marginalised groups were prevented from obtaining timely medical services both for COVID-19 and other healthcare needs such as maternal care. Further, the monitoring and regulation of the private actors is weak, which in many cases leads to low quality healthcare services. This in turn compromised efforts to manage the COVID-19 outbreak as, for instance, there were reports of private facilities using expired reagents for testing and being unable to provide screening services for COVID-19. As a result, the report urges the Nigerian government to prioritise the provision of public healthcare services for all and reverse current policies intended to encourage higher participation of for-profit healthcare actors. The report also calls for stronger monitoring and regulation of all healthcare providers and the expansion of universal access to social health insurance to eliminate the financial barrier to healthcare services.

During the launch, community members shared their experiences and challenges in accessing COVID related and general healthcare services during the pandemic. Challenges included being required to register online to receive a COVID-19 test which excluded the millions of Nigerians who could not do this either because they did not have smartphones or did not have the access to the internet. Others shared how they were turned away from facilities which were full.

This report was enriched from reflections shared during the roundtable consultation with stakeholders hosted by GI-ESCR in November 2021.