The Impact of Private Financing of Health Care System in Nigeria
Chapter One
Objective of the study
The objectives of the study are;
- To find out problems confronting the health sector in Nigeria
- To find out the impact Health care financing for economic development
- To ascertain the impact of reform on the health sector and the challenges
- To ascertain the relationship between private financing and health care system in Nigeria
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Health Care Financing
Healthcare financing can be defined as the mobilization of funds for healthcare services (Oyefabi, Aliyu & Idris, 2014). In other words, it is the provision of money, funds or resources to the activities designed by government to maintain people’s health. These activities encompass the provision of medical and related services geared toward maintaining good health, especially in the aspect of disease prevention and curative treatment. The concept of health care financing succinctly deals with the quantity and quality of resources a country expends on health care. This is proportionate to the country’s total national income. The amount of resources earmarked for health care in a country is said to be a reflection of health value placement vis-à-vis other categories of goods and services. It has been opined that the nature of health care financing defines the structure and the behaviour of different stakeholders and quality of health outcomes (Metiboba, 2012). The pattern of health financing is therefore intricately connected and indivisibly linked to the provisioning of health services (Rao, Salvaraju, Nagpal & Sakthivel, 2009 & Riman & Akpan, 2012). The duo, Riman & Akpan argued that the definition of health care financing cannot be narrowly conceived and confined to raising enough resources to fund health care needs of people alone, but also entails the questions of affordability and equitable access to health care services by them, including guaranteed financial risk protection. In consonance, Metiboba (2012) contended that when it comes to analyzing health care financing, it is fraught with some nuances since some types of health care services are skewed towards benefitting groups and the community collectively. Worth mentioning here are vaccination against certain communicable diseases, control of malaria and environmental sanitation. Other issues that make analysis of health care financing problematic are public expenditures on food, clothing, shelter and education. The mutually reinforcing trajectory of relationships that exist between the aforementioned survival needs also makes health care financing analysis a difficult one. One of the intricate issues and nuances associated with the analysis of health care financing is the identification of health care expenditure given the demarcation between preventive and curative health care services. The proposed integration of traditional medicine practitioners into the mainstream formal health sector will further pose a challenge to the analysis of health care financing as argued by Metiboba (2012).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought the impact of private financing of health care system in Nigeria
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information the impact of private financing of health care system in Nigeria. 200 staff of ministry of health, Uyo were selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the impact of private financing of health care system in Nigeria. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing challenges of private financing of health care system in Nigeria
Summary
This study was on the impact of private financing of health care system in Nigeria. Four objectives were raised which included: To find out problems confronting the health sector in Nigeria, to find out the impact Health care financing for economic development, to ascertain the impact of reform on the health sector and the challenges and to ascertain the relationship between private financing and health care system in Nigeria. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of ministry of health, Uyo. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made directors, administrative staff, doctors and nurses were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
Several sources of healthcare financing abound to be leveraged on, such as tax-based public sector health financing, household out-of-pocket health expenditure, the private sector (donor funding) and social health insurances. The all-inclusive one is the social health insurance. It has the capacity and potency of reducing catastrophic health expenditure and exists either as community-based health or as social health insurances. It can facilitate rapid access to quality health care services by the indigent, the poor, the marginalized and the socially excluded if the scheme is holistically implemented thereby achieving the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 respectively. In terms of employment and investment opportunities, the scheme has the generating capacity to absorb the army of unemployed graduates in the country
Recommendation
- that the government in collaboration with relevant partners should intensify optimal awareness and education on the scheme to all Nigerians to trigger increase in the number of enrollees.
- government should scale up funding to the scheme in particular and the health sector in general to meet the 15 % baseline allocation being suggested globally.
- the scheme should further be repositioned to focus on quality improvement of health services to meet the satisfaction level of enrollees.
- the current NHIS policy should be restructured to gain a wider coverage and ensures equity in accessing health services especially among the poor, indigent and marginalized populace.
- there should be establishment of functional structures of arbitration to engage the scheme management constantly, health care providers and enrollees in order to minimize mistrust and improve uptake and service delivery.
References
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