By Oladotun Okediji
The root cause of the ongoing mortality in developing countries like Nigeria is not solely the lack of effective medicines or medical knowledge. For a considerable time, it has been feasible to prevent and treat many of these illnesses inexpensively.
However, the challenge lies in delivering the appropriate treatment to the right people, ensuring their utilization, and making it affordable.
As such, to make strides in global health and save lives, efforts must be made to enhance healthcare accessibility, utilization, and quality while also curbing costs.
More than fifty children under the age of five die every four minutes, amounting to approximately 7 million young lives that are lost each year.
Shockingly, nearly a third of these children succumb within the initial month of life.Simultaneously, in the same timeframe of four minutes, two mothers lose their lives during childbirth.
What’s striking is that these tragedies predominantly unfold in developing nations.
Interestingly, simple interventions like providing prenatal care, promoting breastfeeding or safe drinking water, and advising on vaccination could potentially save these almost 7 million infants from early mortality even as daily low-dose aspirin could mitigate the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and certain cancers.
Additionally, deaths from cervical cancer could be reduced through a simple vinegar test to detect precancerous cells on the cervix.
Furthermore, ensuring children have access to affordable eyeglasses could significantly enhance their learning abilities, while depression could be alleviated and suicides prevented through counselling from a trained layperson.
Despite these seemingly straightforward solutions, there are questions on why developing nations are still grappling with implementing basic healthcare systems.
A country like Nigeria for instance is not lacking effective medicines or knowledge. However, the challenge lies in delivering the appropriate treatment to the right people and making medical services affordable.
Gladly, the significant progress achieved in healthcare over the past two decades provides cause for optimism.
Deaths among pregnant women and children under five have plummeted by nearly 30 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively, over the last twenty years.
Moreover, the number of individuals receiving life-sustaining antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for HIV has also increased twenty fold in just a decade at over 8 million people.
Addressing healthcare challenges in developing countries therefore necessitates a comprehensive and strategic approach revolving around training and equipping community health workers to play a pivotal role in extending healthcare access to remote and underserved areas at lesser costs.
These frontline healthcare providers should be embedded within their communities to possess or acquire cultural competence and local knowledge that are crucial for effective healthcare delivery.
By task-shifting responsibilities to these providers, specialized healthcare facilities can prioritize complex cases, thus optimizing resources and improving overall healthcare efficiency.
Moreover, community-based initiatives such as outreaches, sensitization programs, and educational campaigns will be instrumental in raising awareness and fostering behavioural change regarding preventive healthcare practices.
Through these efforts, communities can become empowered to take ownership of their health, leading to better health outcomes and reduced healthcare burdens in the long term.
Additionally, strategic investments in healthcare infrastructure are imperative towards ensuring the effective delivery of healthcare services. This includes establishing and upgrading healthcare facilities, improving transportation networks to facilitate access, and implementing robust information systems for efficient healthcare management.
By investing in infrastructure, governments and organizations can create an enabling environment for the delivery of quality healthcare services to all segments of the population.In essence, by implementing these measures, we can move closer to realizing the goal of universal healthcare access and improving health outcomes for millions of people in developing countries which requires concerted efforts from governments, non-governmental organizations, and the international community.
When implemented, these offer the chances to addressing the root causes of healthcare disparities and pave the way for a healthier and more equitable future for all.
Okediji is a member of the Public Health Committee of the International Pharmaceutical Students Federation.