Medical workers vow to resist privatisation of health sector

The President of MHWUN, Biobelemoye Josiah stated this while donating items to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Durumi, Abuja.He said: “We say no to the privatisation of the tertiary healthcare system in the country.  If we privatise healthcare, what will be the lot of ordinary Nigerians, they want to privatise the tertiary healthcare system and sell it to themselves.  The problem with our healthcare system is not funding but a faulty system that lacks transparency and accountability and you will continue to have a faulty outcome. We need to adopt the global best practices in order to provide world class services.”
 
Apart from the items donated, the MHWUN also promised to give N100, 000 monthly to the IDPs camp for its upkeep. The union also conducted malaria and test HIV test and also provided treatment to the IDPs.  
 
While insisting that it is the responsibility of the government to provide affordable healthcare services to the people, the MHWUN President said: “What we are saying is that public health institutions are institutions of public good. These are institutions that are meant to provide healthcare for the down trodden, the poor and the vulnerable.

“But there is a conspiracy by capitalists to ensure that they take these health facilities from the reach of the common man in the guise of privatization. We are not against a private man using his own money to build a health facility, equip it and keep it for the affluent, especially those who have looted our country and have made it big.
 
“They can establish these hospitals for them, but they should leave the public hospitals for the common man. Public Private Partnership (PPP) has failed in the health sector worldwide. There is no PPP that can make malaria treatment cheaper. Go to all the hospitals that PPP has been introduced in Nigeria, it has taken healthcare away from reach of the poor and the vulnerable.”
 
Responding to a question on the rationale behind the visit, Josiah said: “We felt that we should impact on these very challenged people. They are not here because they wanted to be here. It is circumstances that brought them to this place and we felt coming, even if it is a cup of water we will share with them, it will help to reduce someone’s pains.

“Coming to see the situation as it is, I have directed the section that takes care of humanitarian activities to provide N100, 000 monthly from now on to service this place. This is because they are our neighbours and we can’t just watch them suffer.  God forbid, if a child dies here, it is a loss to Nigeria.”