Dr. Uche Ojinmah, President of the Nigerian Medical Association, stated on Tuesday that Nigerians are becoming more and more impoverished as a result of the country’s growing healthcare expenses.

During a webinar hosted by TheCable to mark its tenth anniversary, Dr. Ojinmah made this statement.

The goal of the webcast, “Addressing escalating costs of medicines,” was to start a thorough discussion on the startling increase in the cost of necessary medications and medical supplies throughout Nigeria.

On February 28, Prof. Muhammad Pate, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, announced that the Federal Government would issue an executive order to stop the nation’s medicine prices from rising.

According to Pate, the executive order is intended to lower medicine prices temporarily.

But after two months, the government still hasn’t signed the order despite the rising expense of medications and financial difficulties.

The NMA President while speaking at the webinar said, ”Nigerians are going deeper into poverty as a result of purchasing healthcare. Nigeria should develop a health sector development bank to help the local pharmaceutical industry.

“If we cannot bridge the inequality in the health sector, the rich that can afford the drug will stay healthy and stay rich while the poor would be on a downward spiral.

“We will have a problem on our hands because there is a point it will get to and people will no longer sit in their houses and die but move into the streets and seek a solution.”

For the benefit of the populace, he pleaded with the administration to proceed from policy design to implementation.

Ojinmah said, “It is the position of the NMA that we should move from planning to rolling out policies. We call on the government to link up good health indices with good economic outcome

“We should increase the penetration of the National Health Insurance Scheme to reduce out-of-pocket expenditures.”