Nigeria Only Country Where Citizens Pay For Heart Surgery – Expert

A cardiothoracic surgeon has named Nigeria as the only country in the world where citizens pay for heart surgery.

Head of Cardiac Surgery Team of the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Prof. Uvie Onakpoya, said this while speaking with journalists on Friday in Ile-Ife, as part of events marking this year’s occasion of World Heart Day.

He advised Government at all levels to come up with an initiative that will take off the burden of payment for open heart surgery by sufferers of the ailments in the country.

He noted that in Sudan and Uganda, government foot the bill of heart surgery for the citizens.

According to him, heart surgery being an expensive procedure would make the vulnerable citizens poorer; hence, the government in other countries pick the bills.

He subsequently called on, especially the Federal Government, to come up with plans towards assisting heart patients in need of surgery to have it done at no cost at all.

He said, “Nowhere in the world does anybody pay for heart surgery except in Nigeria. It is the only country in the world where you have to get your own money to have heart surgery. Everywhere else that I have been to, it is the government that has an insurance system to take care of heart surgery.

“It is a catastrophic event to pay for heart surgery because if you pay for it, most people in Nigeria will become poor. A catastrophic health situation is one that a family cannot afford or if they can pay for it, they will go into poverty.

“Most people cannot pay for heart surgery. It is the government’s responsibility to take care of the citizens of the country. What we are proposing to the government is that even if the government decides to take care of just 1,000 heart surgeries a year, that should be about N4bn and that is a very small amount of money to the Federal Government.

“So, if the government says they are going to pay for 1,000 heart surgeries, whether done in the public or private sector, as long as the beneficiaries are Nigerians who cannot afford that surgery or if they pay, they will go into poverty.

“The few public hospitals that are doing Cardiac surgery (OAU and LASUTH) have good outcomes that will compare favourably with any other hospital doing the same kind of surgery anywhere in the world.

“Therefore, it behoves the government to decide that they want to cater for the health of the citizens. Out of the 70,000 to 80,000 people who need heart surgery every year, if the government decides that it is going to pay for 1,000 of them, it is not too much. That is less than 10 per cent.

“It (heart surgery) is too expensive for most state governments to run but they can decide to sponsor people from their state. Osun State Government can decide to sponsor 500 citizens or inhabitants of the state. Once we do that, our life expectancy will increase.”

• Kazeem Badmus