University Advancement Profession and the Actualization of Health for All in Developing Countries by 2030: Lessons from University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Abstract

Both adult and infant mortality rates have been very high in Nigeria and other African and developing countries. This situation prompted the Government of Nigeria to come up with the goal of achieving health for all by the year 2020. The targeted year has come and gone yet the mortality rate is still high showing that the country has not been doing well in the health sector. Almost every public university in Nigeria has a University Teaching Hospital which were established to provide opportunity for internship training of Nigerian doctors and tertiary health care services to the public at affordable cost. However these hospitals are performing sub-optimally as a result of dearth of modern health infrastructure. Nigerian Universities are grossly underfunded. The underfunding has affected their teaching hospitals as they depend mainly on government funding which is difficult to come by. But University underfunding is a worldwide phenomenon. In the face of this underfunding the US public universities and therefore the teaching hospitals have continued to maintain near optimal level of performance. What have they done to achieve this feat? This work attempts to draw lessons from University of Washington, Seattle, US, how it uses the University Advancement Profession to raise funds for the teaching hospitals activities. The paper presents various ramifications of the Advancement profession and, borrowing from the University of Washington, it discusses how the Centre can be used to reposition the teaching hospitals in Africa and Developing countries to start tapping from the large pool of funds existing both within the country and internationally for the development of their teaching hospitals, improve their care delivery and lead to the actualization of health for all by the year 2030.