Don formulate new healthcare model for the poor
A university don, Dr Francis Igberaese as a way of expanding those that can access healthcare has formulated a model that would take care of the health needs of the poor and reduce the reliance on the out-of-pocket model which he said is outdated and beyond the reach of many
. He has suggested what he called the case not model where patients are treated and the cost of their treatments are stated in their case notes rather than completely abandoning them until they get needed money before they are attended to by health officials.
This suggested model is contained in a document which is part of his research he presented at the SCOPUS International Conference on Economics and Business in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Igberaese is a University Don and Development and Health Economist with Mudiame University in Irrua, Edo State said the case not model is not perfect, it is far better than the out-of-pocket model and he is hopeful that new model can be improved upon.
He said in his research, he observed some empirical irregularities in the treatments of poor patients at the Irrua Special and Teaching Hospital, which in sympathy with the poor devised an unorthodox practice of initiating treatments and writing the costs in the case note of the patient for later payments but noted that the practice is for only emergency patients and maternal cases where in the case of emergency, it is restricted to helping the patients out of life threatening situations and not to make him fully recover while in the case of maternal cases, new mothers and their babies are detained in the hospital until their relatives are able to pay their hospital bills.
According to him, “As a pro-poor and anti-poverty expert, I have been working on a suitable health model for three years now because even the Canadian National Health Insurance model imported by the Obasanjo’s administration can never cover up to 10% of Nigerians in decades to come because of the large informal sector. The United Kingdom Beveridge and the German Bismark models can also not work in a labour surplus economy like Nigeria’s. So, I discovered that we can have the Nigerian “Case Note Model”, which by this conference should be properly recognized, discussed and taught to students of Health Economics all over the world”
“Despite its many disadvantages I listed in the conference paper, it is still better than the Out-of-Pocket model because at least, those categories of poor patients are not abandoned to die at that time. With sufficient studies and public health interventions by local and international health concerns, all these disadvantages and limitations will be overcome and as a new health model for the poor is hereby born, not only for Nigerians but also for all developing economies.”
He said “there is still a lot of research and development to be done in order to greatly improve and spread the model for use by all hospitals. He said that he would be gathering health stakeholders, do some Focus Group Discussions, Community Conversations, Contact tracings of patients to properly develop/improve the model. He therefore asked for support in the form of grants, collaborations and in any other way for further studies and development of his model.
He lamented that there are millions of poor people who live without seeing a doctor but patronizing local herbalists whose efficacies are highly doubtful, hence the motivation for the research saying that since Nigeria “still mainly practise the outdated Out-of-Pocket model of healthcare delivery, those who do not have money are left to die before their times while many of them who may not die found themselves in permanent states of morbidity; the state of disability measured by both Instrumental Activity of Daily Living and Activity of Daily Living.”
