The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) on Wednesday condemned President Muhamadu Buhari’s trip to London for “routine medical checkup,” describing it as insensitive, and an insult to Nigerians .
SPN in a statement made available to journalists in Ibadan signed by its Acting National Chairperson, Comrade Bamigboye Abiodun and National Secretary, Comrade Chinedu Bosah, said that the “trip is also an insult to health workers especially doctors and nurses who have been risking their lives.
The statement reads in part: “It becomes all the more insulting and provocative considering the fact that President Buhari has jetted out of the country for his own Medical treatment and care using public funds 48hours to the commencement of a nationwide strike by resident doctors” .
“The trip is also an insult to health workers especially doctors and nurses who have been risking their lives since last year with some paying the Supreme price to fight the CoronaVirus pandemic with very little support by government in terms of basic protection kits, equipment to work with and welfare”, it said.
Continuing the statement said, ” therefore beyond mere condemnation, the SPN believes concrete actions are need to send a note of warning to the capitalist elite that workers, the poor and youth will not continue to tolerate their failures to improve the conditions of our life, neither would we continue to overlook their temerity and shamelessness in rubbing salt into our collective wound by their insensitive conducts and actions.
” One of the things the Coronavirus pandemic has done is to expose the weakness of the nation’s underfunded public healthcare sector and the urgency of improving the healthcare system in order to improve the lifespan and quality of life of Nigerians and to also prepare the country for the next pandemic. Unfortunately, President Buhari’s medical tourism shows that the regime has learnt no lesson.
” very little has changed in the quality of healthcare sector in Nigeria. According to a May 18, 2020 publication by the Journal of Global Health Reports, Nigeria accounts for at least 20% of global maternal death (death of pregnant mother during childbirth). This meant a Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) of 814 per 100, 000 life births. Similarly, the lifetime risk of a Nigerian woman dying during pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum or post-abortion is 1 in 22, in contrast to the lifetime risk in developed countries estimated at 1 in 4900. In the same vein, very little efforts have been made to expand medical facilities as there are only 34, 000 Primary Health Centres (PHC) for a rapidly growing population of over 200 million.”
