Health Seeking Behaviour – The Nigerian Factor

Health seeking behaviour is simply any action undertaken by ill individuals to access care

It took Madam Comfort and Madam Jennifer (Not real names) about 5 years and 1 year respectively to get to a hospital.

You would think that they would have arrived at the hospital earlier but like all things in Nigeria, nothing is as easy as it seems.

The fact that Madam Comfort’s abdomen looked as if three children were hiding inside or that her legs looked like two Iroko trees standing side by side having a conversation wasn’t enough to wake up any sense of urgency.

Madam Jennifer’s case was not so bad, her abdomen, though enlarged just made her look pregnant, for an elderly lady in her 70s, it wasn’t taken very seriously.

A doctor confronted with such cases might not know where to start after getting over the initial shock and bewilderment, I mean, don’t these people have eyes? How can you sit at home and ignore such glaring symptoms?

There is also another quandary the doctor faces, do you take such cases as #emergencies? Surely they can’t be emergencies if they decided to take so long before presenting.

Say the doctor decides just to order some tests and sends them home, there are two possible Nigerian reactions; one is to humbly accept that the doctor is always right and the other is to ask the doctor, “Look at her, can she go home like this?”

Well, duh.

But we are skirting the main question here which is why did it take them so long to get to the hospital?

Nigeria is a unique place.

An elderly woman is left alone in the village while her children go to chase the golden fleece in Lagos, Abuja, or other metropolitan areas. She notices something wrong with her body and she goes to her backyard, plucks some leaves, adds a few essentials, and drinks. She expects to get better.

In a few weeks, a neighbor comes to visit and notices mama is not looking very right. “There is this specialist in roots I know, I can take you there,” the neighbor offers. They set a date for the following week.

Mama goes there and gets a ‘prescription’.

Another month passes and mama is not getting better. Some enlightened relatives come to visit.

“Mama, this looks like an attack, let’s take you to a spiritualist,” they offer.

Mama begins a 6-month spiritual therapy.

Finally, mama is tired and decides to stay at home and accept her fate. Calls are made to her children in the city. They respond that they will come to the village as soon as they can get time off work. They send money to mama.

It takes another 3 months before they get time. Finally, they are home with mama. They look at the situation of things.

“Mama, let me return to the city and make preparations for you to come over.”

These ‘preparations’ take another 3 months.

Mama is finally in Lagos or Abuja, but that is not the end of mama’s woes.

There is no money to take mama to the hospital

They start to hustle -this takes several months

Finally, mama gets to the hospital about 3 years after her initial symptoms.

Nigerian Health Policy

The stories above show the many decision-making processes that come before someone finally presents at the hospital in our environment. Poverty, ignorance, cultural factors, economic situation, and access to healthcare contribute to this decision-making.

These problems are largely unique to our society and Health policymakers would need to factor them in when drawing up policies.

image: vanguardngr.com