Rethinking Health Practices For Effective Development In Nigeria: Evidences From Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Edo State

Abstract

After years of research, we have observed that hospitals in Nigeria have innovated a healthcare delivery practice to relieve the poor patients from critical conditions. This, we call “the Case Note Practice”. However, it has only helped the poor patients out of critical conditions instead of permanently reducing their “Burden(s) of Disease” and “Cost(s) of Illness”. The practice can be the springboard of a new healthcare delivering model - “The Case Note Model” - in the likes of Beveridge, Bismark and the National Health Insurance, suitable for, and indigenous of Nigeria. This study takes the case of Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, a tertiary and referrer hospital located in rural Edo State, Nigeria. It uses the Key Informant Interview in the form of slicing through the organization. It calls for more engagements and international interventions for further research and to assist the hospitals in order to improve on the practice. Such interventions are necessary because under no condition should for example, epidemiological concerns make a woman die or be maternally morbid in the process of bringing another human being to life. The study is a big innovation in the Nigerian healthcare system and can provoke health research for the benefits of the poor patients.