Health systems sustainability

Health systems sustainability in coping up with contemporary health issues is the censorious concern in many of the counties due to fervently increasing stiff competition among both the public and private health sectors to maintain their quo and the relevance in the market. Training status and the development of any health sector have over decades occupied the core of the sustainable competitive advantage in various countries (Ayeleke et al., 2016). Essentially, the health workers are key assets in the health system and exponentially investing in their talents in terms their capabilities and specialization are vital in sustaining the desired competitive advantage in Nigerian private hospitals .as a matter of concern, the private hospital in Nigeria go through a tedious process in recruiting and hiring the most qualified and deemed suitable health workers, nonetheless, more often than not the consideration of the health worker general welfare fizzles out there and off.

According to ‌Barney (1991), an organization that mutually and extensively engages in employee’s development, welfare, and the capacity building, maintain their relevance in outdoes all the prevailing competitors and their output in terms of profits increases compared to a health organization that neglects their employees’ development. The well served and the dedicated training and the development immensely catalyze the health workers’ engagement and the aggressive engagement is very crucial in the private hospital delivery of service and the financial development. 

According to ‌Collis and Hussey (2013), capitalizing in the employees’ investment and their professional development is propitious in enhancing teamwork and the health workers retention in the private hospitals in Nigeria. ‌Collis and Hussey (2013) claim that 94% of the health workers remain loyal and stays in the hospitals for a long time if the investment is tailored to meet their professional capacity building is sustained. A report from the Gallup study shows that almost 40% of the United States workforce is driven based on the millennial. This means that the rate of retaining them for a long in their respective workplaces is efficient. As the health system landscape becomes stiffly competitive, inherent, and considerate improvement of the health worker’s training and development is imperative (‌Collis & Hussey, 2013). Their study, therefore, posits that the health workers or rather employees training and the development has ceased to be a bed of the organization’s fame but paramount in the professional development and the auspicious workforce that drive the health system.

Prudently, Kash et al. (2014) report that training encompasses the programs that introspectively and physically facilitate the health workers to learn the prerequisite skills required to improve and propel the private hospitals’ development in their competitive quest. According to Kash et al. (2014), development program in the private hospitals boost the employees’ plan and their progressive performance but not their current professional status. As the health issues emerge in the world discourse, so will the new health-related issues, as new diseases emerge. As a result, there will be a great impact on health development and education. Desiring to cope up with these changes by recognizing the relevant skills and the appropriate ways of inculcating them significantly boost the private hospital innovativeness and remain focused on their set goals (Kash et al., 2014). Despite, merging the modern skill and the creative development methods potentially maintain the health professionals’ dynamically adopting new changes in the contemporary health discourse in Nigeria.

According to Kumah, Ankomah and Antwi (2016), the frequency in the development initiatives and training mitigates the boredom and redundancy which emanates from the prejudiced working habits. The regular training of health workers elicits the culture of self-evaluation and regular progress analysis among the workers. Babble (2009) argues that training and the development zealously instills the sense of candid orientation in future planning. Dedicated training and development prompt the employer to assess the existing and unexploited talents among the employees and evaluate the appropriate growth. Also, identifying the new talent among the employees facilitate the private hospital to actualize the targeted skill deemed apt in the existing gaps in the health sector.

1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH STUDY

The study carried out by Barky (2007) posits that due to the incommensurate and the inadequate health program implemented by the Nigerian government to address a myriad of the quagmire afflicting the general health in Nigeria, they have seen the negligible improvement in the health status. According to the research, the perennial negligence by the Nigerian government to alleviate and address the public health issue has left pangs of the anticipation among the poor Nigerian citizens. There has been the meager motivation in both the private and the public health sectors. According to the World Bureau of Statistics (WBS) and the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSD), Nigeria is globally known to be densely populated in Africa with approximately 182 million inhabitants.

This number of the population do not measure up with the number of public hospitals expected to accommodate the required patient capacity. As per the World Health Organization (WHO), the overall life expectancy in Nigeria is tentatively at 54 years and the infants’ mortality rate of approximately 86 in every 1000 live birth. Also, the maternal mortality ratio is estimated to be 840 in every 10000 live birth.

In addition, World Health Statistic (WHS), on the status of the non-communicable diseases among the third world countries, Nigeria is at the receiving end as it heftily burdened with these diseases which include but not limited to; cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, stroke, asthma coronary heart disease. Besides, WHS the estimated malaria mortality rate of the Nigerian population as 146 out of the 100000 randomized populations. It further reveals that the Nigerian population is leading in the tuberculosis burden and victims globally. which by extension culminating in an unbearable burden in Africa cumulatively. The genera Nigerian health sector is currently writhing in the yoke of the greatest burden that encompasses among others, the containment of the infectious and contagious disease like the current Covid-19 Pandemic and some other related emerging communicable diseases.

According to WHS, for the last 10 consecutive years, there has been an acute shortage of health workers in the Nigerian both in the public and the private sector. This shortage has been attributed to the social brain drain. These multidimensional predicaments are escalated by the newly risen sociopolitical of Nigerian history and the inadequacy in the institutionalized capacity policies to curb the menace. The continued negligence on the health sector and the respective authorities are crippled by the already unstable situation. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reports that the GDP for both the private and the public sector is approximately 2.6% and 0.8% respectively. Intriguingly, the respective authorities and the government has notably tried to alleviate the challenge. However, there has been any substantial and material move to fully iron out the perennial problem. The current Nigerian national health has well-informed policies on the health program, for instance, the blood transfusion, HIV/AIDS food and nutrition, child and drug substance abuse, national healthcare system, food hygiene, and the safety as well as health national policies. All these revised health policies have not significantly curbed the pinch of this excruciating pain on the health sector.

The Nigerian government inter-sectorial movements and the cooperation among the various respective government ministries have not outdone the challenge in the health sector. According to WHO and the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the national health system still wallows in the cocoon of the poor management and ineffective operation in term of management, there is skewed resource distribution in the public and the private sector. Besides, 70% of the doctors are urban residence because the high population of Nigerian is in the rural. As a result, the high percentage of the citizens living in the rural are left in the hand of unscrupulous and incompetent health workers.

The Nigerian government, in its quest to assuage this health-related problem, in cooperation with the federal health ministry constituted a National emergency response and preparedness team. Although this team coupled with the public health emergency, the Nigerian citizen still experiences the great challenges in accessing the quality health service. According to the Nigerian federal ministry of health, (FMOH) every year the country records a new case of an outbreak of a disease which in most cases leaves thousands of Nigerians succumbing to the disease. While these emergency outbreaks have been experienced in the recent past there has been an appropriate cushioning measure to alleviate the challenge. According to UNICEF, the outbreak of cholera in Nigeria is deemed to affect about 3 to 5 million populations in Nigeria and the 100,000 to 150,000 cases of deaths yearly.