The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Tunji Alausa, has denied reports that the Nigerian government is planning to privatise the country's teaching hospitals.
Mr Alausa said the government is focused on boosting growth in the health sector but has no plans to commercialise its health institutions.
The minister was responding to a question from a Newslodgereporter on Thursday on the sidelines of an event to inaugurate a committee tasked with the responsibility of addressing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
He was reacting to a comment by the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Health, Amos Magaji, who expressed the desire of parliament to support the privatisation of Nigeria's university teaching hospitals.
Recently, the lawmaker representing Zangon Kataf/Jaba Federal Constituency of Kaduna State, northwestern Nigeria, suggested that privatization of teaching hospitals could help address some of the challenges of the health system, such as overstretched facilities, poor power supply and severe staff shortages.
However, when Newslodgeapproached Mr Alausa on this issue, he dismissed this suggestion, though he asked rhetorically: “Why would we do that?”
The minister said the country has no plans to hand over public health institutions to the private sector, but rather seeks to seek collaboration to improve services provided in the health system.
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He said: “No, we are not privatising any teaching hospitals. Why would we privatise teaching hospitals? We are working with the private sector to see how we can collaborate to improve services in the healthcare system, but we are not privatising our hospitals.
“We are not pursuing any policy of privatising healthcare, there is no campaign or conversation about it at the moment. Not at all.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Magaji's suggestion was widely condemned by Nigerians, including leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), who in response threatened a revolt against such a policy.
Newslodgereported that NLC spokesperson Benson Upah said the body was firmly against the privatisation of teaching hospitals.
He said: “We are opposed to the privatisation of tertiary healthcare institutions. We are strongly opposed to the privatisation of public healthcare institutions. Our reasons are simple: it will put healthcare out of reach of citizens. The contribution of private institutions to healthcare service has not been spectacular. Even when it comes to salaries, public hospitals pay better than private institutions.”
He argued that private investors should create their own hospitals and oversee management.
“Leave alone the hospitals built with taxpayers' money,” he said.
In addition, leaders of medical associations in the health sector opposed the proposal, pointing out that such a policy would only worsen the situation in the sector.
Reacting to the development, President of the Nigerian Medical Association, Bala Audu, said history has shown that privatisation of public institutions in the country would not yield good results.
He said: “Take the case of the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) for example. NEPA was privatised to improve the quality of power generation, distribution and utilisation by Nigerians. I don’t think we have achieved that.
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Mr. Audu described massive investments in primary and secondary healthcare institutions as a beneficial substitute, noting that this automatically reduces the burden on tertiary healthcare institutions and thus improves their efficiency and productivity.
Mr Audu, who spoke to Newslodgein a telephone interview, also said that by reducing public dependence on teaching hospitals, they will focus on their triple mandate of training, research and service delivery.