The Nigerian health sector is sinking deeper into crisis, and the consequences are felt daily by ordinary citizens. Poor access to care, dilapidated infrastructure, endless queues at hospitals, and frequent medical errors have combined to create a system that barely functions. On top of this, healthcare costs remain prohibitively high, well beyond the reach of most Nigerians. Medical care in Nigeria is disproportionately expensive when weighed against the average monthly salary and the national minimum wage.
This is the bitter fruit of decades of underfunding, which has left the public health system gasping for breath. Citizens are forced to rely almost entirely on out-of-pocket payments. The outcome is catastrophic: families are stripped of their savings or driven into deeper poverty, just to afford the most basic treatment. Out-of-pocket spending has become the defining feature of our healthcare system. At the point of service, individuals are expected to pay directly, with little support from insurance or government subsidies. For the poor, this presents a cruel dilemma—choose between seeking medical attention or meeting daily survival needs.
For many households, medical bills consume over 40 percent of their non-food expenditure. These are not numbers; these are lives broken by a failed system. The underfunding of the health sector has triggered a chain reaction of crises. Skilled personnel are in short supply, medical equipment is either inadequate or obsolete, and essential medicines are often unavailable. Public hospitals, already overwhelmed, cannot cope with the demand. Yet private facilities, with their exorbitant costs, remain out of reach for the majority. In a country where the minimum wage is insufficient to cover basic living expenses, even the notion of affordable health insurance is far removed from reality.
Illness in Nigeria does not just weaken the body; it drains entire households of their financial lifeline. The rot in the system is not new, and it has been openly acknowledged, even by those at the very top of government. The late President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina, once admitted that Buhari “would have died much earlier” had he relied solely on Nigerian hospitals. That chilling statement explains why our leaders and their families routinely fly abroad for treatment, while the rest of the country is abandoned to the mercy of broken hospitals. Former First Lady Aisha Buhari earlier voiced a shocking revelation when she lamented that paracetamol, a drug as basic as it gets, was unavailable at the State House Clinic, despite billions of naira allocated to it.
If the presidential clinic could sink to such a state, what hope is there for ordinary Nigerians seeking treatment in rural health centres or state hospitals? The silence of the authorities since these revelations is as telling as it is damning. Meanwhile, Nigeria continues to hemorrhage medical talent. Our doctors, nurses, and other health professionals are leaving in droves for Europe, North America, and the Middle East, where better working conditions and fair pay await them. Those who remain are overworked, underpaid, and stretched to breaking point. The result is worsening inefficiency, interminable queues, and tragic, avoidable deaths from diseases that should no longer be killing people in this century. This is a national disgrace.
While other nations are breaking new ground in medical research and saving lives with modern technology, Nigeria cannot even provide mosquito nets to prevent malaria or functional diagnostic machines in its hospitals. The persistence of poor funding, systemic corruption, and neglected infrastructure in such a critical sector is indefensible. Nigerians are literally paying with their lives. The questions that demand urgent answers are these: Why allocate funds to the health sector at all if they will only disappear into private pockets? What is the purpose of annual budgets when hospitals remain in ruins and patients die waiting for care?
The health of a nation cannot be reduced to a political game. It is a matter of survival, dignity, and national progress. We cannot continue this way. To salvage what is left of our healthcare system, policymakers must act decisively. Health should be declared a national emergency. Adequate funding, transparent management of resources, and fair remuneration for health workers must become the minimum standard, not empty promises. Nigerians deserve access to quality, affordable healthcare. It is unacceptable that in 2025, people still die from malaria, typhoid, and other treatable conditions simply because hospitals are inaccessible or ill-equipped. Enough lives have been wasted. Enough promises have been broken. The state our health sector is a mirror of our values as a nation.
If we cannot protect the lives of our people, what else matters? The time to act is not tomorrow. The time is now. It is therefore incumbent on government at all levels, professional unions, and civil society to rise together in defence of the nation’s health. Leaders must back words with action by investing in infrastructure, ensuring accountability, and creating incentives that keep our doctors and nurses at home. Unions must push not only for improved welfare but also for reforms that guarantee quality service delivery.
Citizens too must demand better from their representatives, refusing to accept mediocrity in a sector where lives hang in the balance. A healthy people are the foundation of a prosperous nation. Nigeria must choose whether to continue watching its citizens die needlessly or to act with urgency to save its future.
