Dr. Uche Ojinmah, National President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), has encouraged the Federal Government to take privatisation of the country's hospitals into consideration in order to improve their performance.
On Sunday in Abuja, Ojinmah told reporters that this was now necessary to ensure the necessary funding for the public and teaching hospitals' efficient operations.
“As far back as 2014, we wrote a compendium on how to fix these teaching hospitals and public hospitals and there are two options if the government wants to fund it properly.
“Go for 15 per cent of the national budget for the health sector and also release the budgeted funds because budgeting is different from cash backing.
“So if they can fund it well and release the necessary cash to back it up then these institutions can come up to speed.”
He said that with this, the government could demand accountability while the other option was privatisation.
In this case, Ojinmah said that it could be outright privatisation, where the hospitals could be fixed and then sold.
“Or we can go for graded privatisation where they sell 51 per cent of the shares. Of course, they should fix it up a bit so that it could fetch some money.
“They get a core investor or sell 51 per cent of the shares to the core investor; if the government does not want to leave totally it can keep a certain percentage, maybe 30 per cent so that with that they can still moderate the price so that we don’t go for full gains to the detriment of the people.
“Then the remaining 19 per cent should be sold to the workers to retain the hospital so that they know they have a stake in this business and they will give their all so that is not all about salary.
“So now, having a representative in that board as the government will help to moderate the price so that there is that human face which is what a doctor brings to heading a hospital.”
He added that boosting the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) would bring more people into the health insurance net and give them better service at reduced costs.