Visit Nigeria and the chances are you will come across
numerous privately owned health clinics, doctor's surgeries and hospitals. They
are so widespread because Nigeria's state-run health system – ranked at 197th
out of 200 by the World Health Organisation – is chronically underfunded and so
overstretched that it simply cannot meet all the demands made on it. Private
medicine fills the gap for those who can afford it.
But while there are many legitimate private health
providers, there are many more that are completely bogus; unaccredited,
unregulated 'quack' doctors - con artists and criminal scammers for the most
part - who ruthlessly exploit the credulity, ignorance and desperation of the poorest
and most vulnerable people in society. Indeed they are so prolific that a
survey carried out in Nigeria earlier this year found that more than 50 percent
of the population had received 'treatment' from the quacks at one time or
another – even people with very serious diseases such as typhoid and malaria.
Professor Alex Dodoo, who monitors patient safety for the
World Health Organisation in West Africa and has dealt with quacks for years
points out the obvious dangers of dealing with fake doctors:
"If one is not licensed by the state, anything that one
does is illegal. Going to see them is dangerous. Period. Would you sit in an
aeroplane where the pilot says 'OK hello, I'm the pilot, but I've not been
licensed!' No way! You put your health at risk and you can die."
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