Health
EKPE Phillips, the FCT Chairman of Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) says one of the conditions to attaining Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is the inclusion of treatment for unknown patients.
UHC is a situation in which people and communities use the promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services they need, while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose them to financial hardship.
Phillips told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja that unknown patients include victims of road accidents or gunshots, or people taken to hospital in unconscious state and without relatives to foot their bill.
He said that such category of patients must be attended to without any inhibition in hospitals, either private or public, to ensure the realisation of UCH.
He said that those who could not afford healthcare must seriously be considered in the attainment of UCH.
According to him, unconscious patients who cannot be identified nor say where they come from deserve to be treated without any inhibition.
He explained that “if road safety officers, officers of Nigeria Police or a good Samaritan picks an unconscious person still breathing on the road and takes such person to the hospital, he or she should be treated.
“An unknown patient deserves medical care; such patient remains a Nigerian who deserves the right to be treated in hospital.
“We may not attain UCH if the country cannot afford to take care of such unknown patients.”
Phillips also said that the peculiarity of unknown patients before now was quite difficult, adding that patients were usually rejected when taken to private hospitals.
He said the fear usually expressed by private hospitals was who who would pay for the unknown patients.
NAN
– Oct 25, 2019 @ 18:10 GMT |
Tags: fundamental to attaining Universal Health Coverage –NMA Treatment of unknown patients
