The Sacheting of Health Care in Nigeria
These days, anything of value to the masses has a poor man’s or a watered down version. From sachet water to sachet milk, from beverages to staple foods like beans, all have a sachet version. Some even have a small sachet and big sachet variant.
What is a Sachet?
It is essentially the packaging of a commodity into a small pack.
Nigeria has become a sachet economy.
Inflation, rising costs of living, insecurity of lives and property are some of the reasons we have found ourselves in this precarious situation.
Beverages and food commodities are not the only items being sacheted, in recent times health has also become sacheted.
How Health is being Sacheted
A patient is found to have high blood pressure and needs to undergo a series of tests to properly diagnose his condition, this is necessary to know his or her risk factors and possibilities of developing complications. These tests include an ECG to check the heart, Liver Function Tests to check the liver, Kidney Function Test to check the kidneys, Cholesterol test etc.
As a doctor practicing in a low resource setting you can’t realistically wait for your patient to do these tests before you commence treatment, else you won’t see the patient in the next 6 months to 1 year and when you do, it may be in heart failure, a stroke or even dead. These tests could cost anything from N20,000 and above. In a country with minimum wage of N30,000 Where do you expect them to find the money?
Another aspect of sachetization is medications. A patient that should buy a month’s supply of drugs will have to settle for what he or she can afford. This is usually a week or two weeks supply (1 sachet). After this the patient will take a break to seek for funds thus disrupting and canceling the benefit they could have received from such medication.
Health practitioners are also being sacheted. Nigeria right now has about 4 doctors to 10,000 people and 1 nurse to 2500 patients. Consequently, with so many skilled workers leaving the country daily, manpower is also sacheted. So, if you are being seen by a health practitioner, the possibility is there that you are not being seen by the required specialist or you are not receiving the optimum care you should.
The risks of sacheting health are obvious
- Sub optimal care
- Poor follow up care
- Leads to complications
- lack of confidence by the populace
There is therefore a need for the government to prioritise healthcare to reverse this disturbing trend.