Campaign for universal access to healthcare for women and children in Nigeria

1. Background to the Campaign
Shortly after his assumption of office in May 2007, the Socio-Economic Rights & Accountability Project (SERAP) asked President Yar’Adua to put forward an executive bill on access to healthcare for women and children in Nigeria. We asked the President to do this within his 100 days in office.

In a few days, on 6 September 2007 will mark President Yar’Adua’s 100 days in office, and the Minister of Information plans to use that day “to showcase the achievements of the Yar’Adua administration”

SERAP has launched this campaign to put pressure on the Yar’Adua government to ensure full access to healthcare for women and children in Nigeria, consistent with Nigeria’s international human rights obligations.

Nigeria illustrates the paradox of poverty amidst plenty. Nigeria has oil wealth and abundant human resources. It is the world’s sixth largest producer of oil, and an important member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). It earns about $37 million daily from crude oil export alone. Naturally, its large resource base should have made the country prosperous and able to meet the basic needs, such as health, of its population.

Forty-three years after independence, however, Nigeria is far from realizing the objectives of its independence, and is falling short of its international human rights commitments, including failing to ensure access to healthcare for millions of Nigerians.

A majority of the populace find themselves in abject poverty, subjected to conditions characterized by sustained or chronic deprivation of resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of legally recognized economic and social rights. The UNDP in December 2002 reported that about 70 million Nigerians are living below the poverty level, increase of 20 million people since 1998.

While statistics alone may not provide a complete understanding of poverty, these figures offer evidence of massive and direct denials of the internationally recognized economic and social rights, including the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, that are entrenched in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and reaffirmed and further elaborated in legally binding human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter), to which Nigeria is a party.

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights established under the ICESCR has confirmed that “gross under-funding and inadequate management of health services have led during the last decade to rapid deterioration of health infrastructures in hospitals.” According to the Committee, hospital patients including poor women and children “are frequently asked to buy drugs and to supply needles, syringes and suture threads, in addition to paying for bed space.”

2. Public petition to President Musa Yar’ Adua
This Campaign aims at ending the longstanding denial of the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health right in Nigeria, and encouraging the government to take a more proactive approach to ensure universal access to healthcare for women and children in Nigeria

The Campaign has received supports from prominent human rights activists such as Mr Femi Falana, President of the West African Bar Association (WABA). SERAP is approaching activists, human rights organizations and the general public to support the appeal. The aim is to collect a million signatures for the petition, which the organization hopes will put pressure on President Yar’Adua to take the recommended step by submitting an executive bill to the National Assembly on universal access to healthcare for poor women and children in Nigeria.

We encourage you to support this initiative by signing on to the petition


Take action

1.Sign our petition by simply sending a blank email with name and
place/residence to: acccesstohealthcarecampaign@serap-nigeria.org
or campaign@serapnigeria.org
2.Contact President Yar’ Adua or Vice President Jonathan or any members of the Federal Executive Council directly (see addresses below)
3.Please send us details of your communications with any of the government officials mentioned above. Please also let us know if you receive a response.

Contact

accesstohealthcarecampaign@serap-nigeria.org or
campaigns@serap-nigeria.org
4.Create a link from your website to our campaign



Public petition


Your Excellency:

Re: Request to initiate an executive bill on universal access to health care within the second 100 days of your administration

As you celebrate 100 days in office, we, the undersigned, write to request you to initiate an executive bill on universal access to care within the second 100 days of your administration in order to improve access to quality health care for million of Nigerians, especially women and children.

We stress that our request is not based on charity; on the contrary it is fully consistent with Nigeria’s international human rights obligations to respect and ensure the right to health, as articulated under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to which Nigeria is a party.

We strongly believe that health care must be accessible and affordable to all Nigerians, especially women and children, irrespective of income or social status.

We are concerned that the increasing costs of providing services combined with the waste, inefficiency and corruption associated with the current health system have resulted in people’s (especially poor women and children) lack of access to basic health care and medication.

We are disappointed that despite Nigeria’s human rights obligations, and the country’s abundant natural resources, successive governments, including your predecessor former President Obasanjo’s administration, have neglected and/or failed to improve Nigerians’ access to quality health care, and our health care system is today one of the poorest in the world.

We note with concerns that Nigeria’s health care system remains in crisis, denying millions of Nigerians, especially women and children, access to medical services and life-saving drugs.

We draw your attention to Nigeria’s human rights obligations, which require the country to guarantee the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

We further draw your attention to your government’s responsibility to make available and accessible to all, especially women and children, regardless of economic status, provisions for the prevention, treatment and control of disease.

We stress that your government is also obligated to identify specific vulnerable groups such as poor women and children, and to afford them access to special health protection that will address their specific health problems.

We believe that implementing piecemeal fixes to discrete problems cannot resolve long-standing problems in the health sector.

We also believe that implementing the universal access to healthcare program would have deep ramifications for our nation's economy, health, and future.

We stress that unless changes which are rooted in human rights principles are made there will be no lasting improvement in the health care situation for the majority of Nigerians, especially women and children.

WE THEREFORE call on you to initiate within the next 100 days of your government in office an executive bill that will establish a universal access to health care for all Nigerians especially women and children.

WE RECOMMEND that the proposed national health care policy should:

•Serve and be sensitive to the needs of poor women and children
•Provide comprehensive benefits to everyone, including preventive services, health promotion, primary and acute care, mental-health care, and extended care.
•Include an equitable and efficient financing system drawn from the broadest possible resource base
•Provide services based on equity, efficiency, and quality.
•Reduce the current rapid inflation in costs through cost-containment measures.
•Be sensitive to the needs of persons working in the various components of the health care system.
•Promote effective and safe innovation and research for women and men in medical techniques, the delivery of health services, and health practices.
•Assess the health impacts of environmental and occupational safety, environmental pollution, sanitation, physical fitness, and standard-of-living issues such as housing and nutrition.
•Educate and motivate persons to pursue a healthy lifestyle, thus avoiding health problems by practicing preventive medicine.
•Be built on the principles of transparency and accountability, and be free from corruption.


Thank you.


Yours sincerely

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