Some African leaders
ABUJA, April 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Africa’s ailing presidents and powerful elites have been known to jet out to seek treatment abroad, instead of investing in healthcare in their own countries.
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe died in a hospital in Singapore, and Cameroon’s Paul Biya regularly seeks treatment abroad.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari was out of the country for several months in 2017 for treatment in London for an undisclosed illness and has frequent checks abroad. Since he took office in 2015, he has embarked on at least four medical trips to the UK.
But with flights grounded and countries across the world on lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, these leaders are getting a wake-up call that they must fix their healthcare systems.
The President of the Commonwealth Medical Association, Osahon Enabulele, says while citizens have endured their leaders’ frequent recourse to overseas medical treatment in the past, they may not remain so tolerant if the coronavirus wreaks havoc as it has elsewhere in the world.
“There is no place for any leader to hide anymore,” Enabulele said. “This whole situation of public office holders in Africa, most times using taxpayers’ money to go on foreign medical trips at the slightest discomfort is one thing that will be reversed when this pandemic is over.”
Infection numbers across the continent, while significantly lower than other parts of the world, are rising exponentially. The World Health Organization recently reported that the number of cases in Africa was now more than 11,000, with 600 deaths.
The pandemic has overwhelmed advanced health facilities, and experts predict it could devastate the continent’s fragile health systems, already plagued by inadequate funding and labor disputes.
Lifesaving machines like ventilators — critical to the management of Covid-19 cases — remain a luxury in some African countries.
The Central African Republic (CAR) has only three ventilators to five million people, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said, warning that an outbreak could bring the tiny African nation to its knees.
“When rich nations are in panic mode stating that thousands of ventilators will not be enough, it just brings to light how poorer nations like CAR don’t stand a chance in the fight against Covid-19,” NRC Country Director in the CAR, David Manan said.
The situation is equally dire in Zimbabwe, where health workers in the nation’s hospitals say they lack basics such as bandages and gloves to take care of their patients.
Nurses and doctors abstained from work to protest a shortage of coronavirus protective gear after the country recorded its first fatality last month.
Meanwhile, Uganda’s health minister Jane Aceng said the country is doing well and that shows with its response to the coronavirus situation. “We’re doing well,” she said.
The East African nation was one of the first African countries to impose travel and strict quarantine policies to prevent the spread of coronavirus even before it reported a case. It has so far reported 53 cases.
Between 2019 and 2020, Uganda spent 8.9 percent of its national budget on health down from 9.2 percent from the previous fiscal year, according to UNICEF. — NNN-AGENCIES
