Abstract
The economic recession in Nigeria has affected various sectors of the economy including the health sector leading to low productivity, poor service delivery and poor health outcome. The Nigerian health sector is still striving to provide basic health care services with the collaborative efforts of the three tiers of government but efforts to achieve this seem unfeasible due to the current state of the Nigerian economy. Nigeria operates a dual system of health care delivery which includes; the orthodox and traditional health care delivery systems. The orthodox health care system is managed and controlled by the three levels of government while the traditional health care delivery system is managed by the traditional health institutions. Some of the challenges confronting the Nigerian health care delivery system include; lack of adequate health infrastructures, poor health funding, lack of political will, shortage of manpower and corruption. The impact of economic recession on the Nigerian health care delivery system may include; high cost of drugs, poor financing of the health sector, high cost of treatment, high disease morbidity and mortality, poor staff motivation, emergence of counterfeit drugs and increase in out-of-pocket expenditure on health care. Approaches to tackling the problems facing the health sector as a result of economic recession include; deliberate health policy reforms, full government support in terms of financing the health sector and strengthening the provision of health enablers, institutionalizing comprehensive health care services and establishing an efficient monitoring and evaluation system. Hence, to strengthen the Nigerian economy, the health care system should be given due attention by adequately tackling its problems and improving its performance so as to suppress the cycle of ill-health, poverty and under-development.
Highlights
Health remains an integral component of man’s existence even in the midst of economic recession
The economic recession in Nigeria has affected various sectors of the economy including the health sector leading to low productivity, poor service delivery and poor health outcome
While economic crisis may contribute largely to poor health outcome, it provides the opportunity for deliberate government health reforms to improve the health system performance [2]
Summary
Health remains an integral component of man’s existence even in the midst of economic recession. Health is directly or indirectly linked to other sectors such as food security and nutrition, household income generation, housing, education, employment status and other social security services. This makes health an essential sector in any Social Sciences 2017; 6(1): 14-18 polity. Health as defined by World Health Organization is “a complete state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmities. This definition is all encompassing and serves to be a global standard which individuals, governments, private organizations adopts and strive to attain. Judging by the above definition Nigeria is experiencing economic recession currently, since her first and second quarters growth in 2016 are -1.7% and -2.06%
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