Chapter 10: Unpacking Opportunities and Challenges for Responsible Healthcare: Nigeria’s Covid-19 Experience

Nigeria remains the largest economy in Africa. However, its health sector is described as weak. It continues to battle several challenges ranging from poor health infrastructure, inaccessibility of good quality health care, corruption, substandard drugs circulating, poor funding, shortage of healthcare personnel, high cost of healthcare amidst poverty-stricken masses, among others. The outbreak of Covid-19 and the global oil price crash have further impacted Nigeria’s dwindling healthcare service delivery/indicators. This chapter thus takes stock of the status of the healthcare indicators, healthcare systems, and healthcare governance in Nigeria before and during the Covid-19 pandemic to decipher the impact of the damage caused by Covid-19 on the already weak Nigeria’s health sector. It discusses healthcare indicators, system constraints and responses, and the demand and supply of health care in Nigeria in the era of Covid-19. This chapter shows how Covid-19 has negatively and positively affected the healthcare sector in Nigeria. However, the negative impact remains overwhelming and has potentially grave consequences. This study thus develops a policy framework and time-tested strategy to recover Nigeria’s health sector while factoring in the present capabilities of Nigeria’s health sector. This study thus recommends that adequate infrastructure investment and welfare for healthcare workers are important for the recovery of Nigeria’s health sector.