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HEALTH INSURANCE Historically, , Health Care provided by Government through a special health insurance scheme for government employees and private firms entering contracts with private health care providers. Ronald J. Vogel; Financing Health Care in Sub-Saharan Africa Greenwood Press, 1993. pp 101-102 However, there are few people who fall within the three instances. In May 1999, the government created the National Health Insurance Scheme, the scheme encompasses Government Employees , the organized Private Sector and the informal sector. Legislative wise, the scheme also covers children under five, permanently disabled persons and prison inmates. In 2004, the administration of Obasanjo further gave more legislative powers to the scheme with positive amendments to the original 1999 legislative act. Felicia Monye; 'An Appraisal of the National Health Insurance Scheme of Nigeria', Commonwealth Law Bulletin, 32:3 415-427 MENTAL HEALTH The majority of Mental Health services is provided by 8 regional Psychiatric centers and psychiatric departments and Medical Schools of 12 major universities. A few general hospitals also provide mental health services. However, the formal centers have competition in native Herbalists and Faith Healing centers. The ratio of psychologists and social workers is 0.02 to 100,000.Oyedeji Ayonrinde, Oye Gureje, Rahmaan Lawal; 'Psychiatric research in Nigeria: bridging tradition and modernisation', The British Journal of Psychiatry (2004) 184: 536-538 ISSUES Drug policy in Nigeria In terms of drug Regulation , Nigeria took an interesting step in 1989, when it passed a legislation to make effective a list of Essential Drugs in the country. The regulation was also meant to limit the Manufacture and import of Fake or sub-standard Drugs and to curtail False Advertising . However, the section on essential drugs list was later amended. National Drug Policy in Nigeria, O. Ransome Kuti. Journal of Public Health Policy > Vol. 13, No. 3 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 367-373 Drug quality is primary controlled by the agency for food and drug administration. Spatial inequality Health care in Nigeria is influenced by different local and regional factors that impacts the quality or quantity present in one location. Due to the aforementioned, the Health Care System in Nigeria has shown Spatial variation in terms of availability and quality of facilities in relation to need. However, this is largely as a result of the level of state and Local Government involvement and investment in health care programs and Education . Also, the Nigerian ministry of health usually spend about 70% of its budget in urban areas where 30% of the population resides. It is assumed by some scholars that the health care service is inversely related to the need of patients.Rais Akhtar; Health Care Patterns and Planning in Developing Countries. Greenwood Press, 1991. 265 pgs. Emigration Migration of health care Personnel to other countries is a taxing and relevant issue in the health care system of the country. From a Supply push factor, a resulting rise in exodus of health care nurses may be due to dramatic factors that make the work unbearable and knowing and presenting changes to arrest the factors may stem a tide.Darlene A. Clark, Paul F. Clark, James B. Stewart; The Globalization of the Labour Market for Health-Care Professionals. International Labour Review, Vol. 145, 2006 However, because a large number of Nurses and Doctors migrating abroad benefited from government funds for education, it poses a challenge to the patriotic identity of citizens and also the rate of return of federal funding of health care education. The state of health care in Nigeria has been worsened by a shortage of doctors as a consequence of severe ' Brain Drain '. Many Nigerian doctors have emigrated to North America and Europe. In 1995, 21,000 Nigeria doctors were practising in the US alone, about the same as the number of doctors then in the Nigerian public service. Retaining these expensively-trained professionals has been identified as an urgent goal. CRITICISM Who cares about health care in Nigeria? The World Health Organization's definition of health is not merely the absence of disease but the attainment of a state of Physical , Mental , Emotional and social well being.
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