In a classic case of a failed healthcare system that expects patients or their families to pay out of pocket, a nursing mother and her seven-month-old daughter are being held by a private hospital over her inability to offset her childbirth bill.
Following her inability to pay her N95,000 hospital bill, Blessing Bassey and her baby have been sleeping on the floor of one of the wards of Mojol Hospital, Church Street, in Shasha area of Lagos State, for seven months.
Our correspondent gathered that the hospital management ordered nurses and doctors to ensure that Blessing and her daughter did not leave the hospital premises.
Our correspondent, during a visit to the hospital, observed the 27-year-old and her child sleeping on the floor.
Blessing, who bemoaned her fate, said efforts by her husband to raise the money had been abortive.
The Cross River State indigene explained that her husband, a mechanic, tried to do menial jobs to raise the funds, but failed.
While recalling how she got to the hospital, Blessing said she was unconscious on March 6, 2020, when she was rushed to a medical facility where she was initially registered.
She said, “I was seven months’ pregnant that time. I collapsed and was rushed to the hospital I registered with, but they did not have equipment for a caesarean section, so I was referred to Mojol Hospital. I was rushed to the hospital that same night and a CS was performed to save my life and that of the baby.
“Some days after the CS was done, I was told that our bill was N300,000; we paid N100,000 out of it.
“After paying, the owner of the hospital said the bill was N350,000. One of our neighbours came to beg her to reduce the money, and she reduced it to N250,000.
“We were able to pay a total of N155,000 and begged her to allow me to go and work so we could pay the balance by instalments, but she refused. I have been in the hospital since then.
“I had not spent one month on the hospital bed after the CS when I was told to move to the floor. I had to spread my wrapper on the floor so that my baby and I could sleep and that’s where we have been sleeping for the past seven months.
“I don’t have any money on me. I begged people that come to visit other patients for money to feed myself and the baby.”
The Administrative Officer of the hospital, Salami Akindayo, told our correspondent that patients in similar situations who were released with the hope of making them pay by instalments had defaulted.
Akindayo said, “She was rushed to our hospital on emergency and we tried to save her life before even asking for money. After the delivery was done, she was unconscious for five days before eventually coming round. And when she was given the bill, the MD had to reduce it so that they could pay.
“We have released patients who promised to pay, but they never did. So, we decided that any patient that didn’t pay the hospital bill won’t be discharged. The hospital has written letters to some organisations to ask if they could assist her; we’re still waiting for their response. I have presented her matter to the Ohaneze group and they promised to get back to us.”
A rights activist, Esther Ogwu, who condemned the action of the hospital, stated that money was being contributed for Blessing’s release.
“What the hospital should have done was make her sign an undertaking to pay the balance,” Ogwu said.
According to online health portal, The Lancet, hospitals, public or private, demand upfront payments for treatment in Nigeria. “There is an over-reliance on out-of-pocket payments in Nigeria,” the journal noted.
In a research published in the journal by Bolaji Samson Aregbeshola, the researcher stated that about 70 percent of Nigerians live in poverty, noting that out-of-pocket payments can make households and individuals incur catastrophic health expenditure, which can exacerbate the level of poverty.
He warned that such source of health-care financing negatively affects people’s living standards and welfare.
And, in situations where a health insurance would have solved the situation, Aregbesola said more than 90 percent of the Nigerian population is uninsured in spite of the establishment of a National Health Insurance Scheme in 2005.
“Less than five percent of Nigerians in the formal sector are covered by the NHIS. Only three percent of people in the informal sector are covered by voluntary private health insurance,” Aregbesola stated; noting that, “uninsured patients are at the mercy of a non-performing health system.”
He said private health insurance must be made mandatory, while the community-based health insurance scheme needs to be scaled up across the country.
“Out-of-pocket payments affect the ability of households and individuals to meet basic needs and push many below the poverty line,” he submitted.
