Gone Too Soon

The poorer you are in this country, the shorter your life-span! The two major factors that limits life longevity in Nigeria are poverty and a porous health care system. 

A man who can't afford to give himself basic medical treatment is always at the mercy of all kinds of sickness and disease. He'd often resort to herbal medicine even though he knows that his best chance of survival lies with science. He would tell you “disease no dey kill African man” not really because he shares that sentiment but only to divert people's attention from his serious state of penury. 

The second factor that shortens the life-span of a person in this country is the poor state of our health care system. In a recent publication, the life-span of the average Nigerian is now pegged at 60 years! Unfortunately for the rich and middle class in this country, who can afford most of the treatment given in most of our local hospitals, many of them still die from simple surgeries due to lack of advance medical facilities and competent staffs. 

On the 5th of August, I read on the news that 150 Nigerian doctors are preparing to write an exam that would enable them practice medicine in the United Kingdom. Just think about that for a minute: 150 of our best brains in the all-important health sector! Who then takes care of us and our loved ones when we fall sick? Less I forget, resident doctors are currently on strike in this country.

Also, in most health institutions, you'd often see a situation whereby only one doctor is attending to more than a 100 patients at a time! Most hospitals are under-staffed and overcharge. And in the rare case where they seem to be enough staffs, majority of them are incompetent, and only care about financially bleeding their patients dry.

A friend recently told me of a cousin of his who went to donate blood in a certain hospital for a friend who was there. However, later that evening, his cousin was hospitalized himself. Apparently, the nurse who took his blood had poked him several times with the needle and had mistakenly struck a wrong nerve. This caused him to have series of seizures in his body throughout the day. He could have tragically died from donating blood and was barely able to survive that ordeal through the thin of his teeth. If our nurses can't handle something as basic and rudimentary as taking blood from a patient without screwing-up, then we are in serious trouble.

Every day, in this country, thousands of people die avoidable deaths because they can barely feed and can't afford to check themselves into an hospital; and every day, in this country, hundreds of people die needless deaths because they're no adequate medical facilities and competent staffs. “Gone Too Soon” is never a good phrase, but one that's quickly becoming the theme of our existence in this hellish place called Nigeria.