* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Mechanisms as simple as health records have the power to transform the lives of vulnerable people
It is a sad truth that today the average Japanese person can expect to live more than 30 years longer than an average Sierra Leonean. The alarming global health inequalities that create this scenario have deprived the poorest segments of society from the vast advancements in modern medicine that the develop world enjoys.
Health inequality is pervasive, at both a global and local level. At a global level, developed countries for the most part deliver free and advanced healthcare services to their citizens, while poor countries often struggle to provide any public service at all. This exemplifies the global injustice that sees a growing divide between developed and developing nations.
From a localised perspective, this story rings just as true. In my native Nigeria, access to primary healthcare is not universal – poor, rural and remote areas suffer sparse and inadequate resources, with many having to travel huge distances for even the most basic care. But access to healthcare is a human right, and in its absence countries are predisposing themselves to grave social and economic problems. Health inequality negatively impacts economic growth, as the dwindling health of large sections of the workforce have an immediate and direct impact on economic output. What’s more, it creates a platform on which social unrest and tensions arise, with dangerous outcomes.
Health equality and widespread primary healthcare is a cornerstone to broader development objectives, and must be prioritised.
Nowhere are health inequalities more prevalent than among the world’s most vulnerable groups. In Nigeria, this lies in Nigeria’s prisons, where incarcerated women are typically exempt from decent health care, and babies born in prison are often undocumented. These vulnerable women deserve access to the same quality healthcare as everyone, and the innocent babies born within prison walls must be cared for and documented.
My Foundation, the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, has made strides in catering for women and children in national prisons, through the provision of post- and ante-natal classes to state prisons in Nigeria. In failing to provide quality healthcare to all sects of society and denying the most basic of human rights, we are failing not just the victims of exclusion but crippling the very foundations on which society is based.
Another vulnerable group that suffers a similar fate are internally displaced people (IDPs). The number of IDPs in Nigeria has grown incrementally since 2014, and more and more people have been denied access to quality healthcare, left desolate and unaccounted for. Unable to provide documentation, many IDPs find it difficult to integrate in to their new homes, and are unable to access public services such as healthcare that all people need and deserve.
This must change.
The question remains: how to account for the unaccounted for in the absence of adequate resources among a bulging population? The answer lies in registration and health records. Through ensuring that every birth and death is recorded, governments are held directly accountable for their shortfalls, be it in a prison, an IDP camp, or a remote area that does not receive adequate healthcare services.
It is imperative that every child is granted a personal health record on birth; not only is will this be critical when administering vaccinations at a later age, but it provides a child with an identity and a status. The digital age has created a situation whereby never before has it been easier for governments to track their citizens. Public healthcare systems must capitalise on this. Through the use of digitisation, health records can be accessed where needed and have the potential to provide accurate data on an individual where necessary. This would hugely assist efforts to resolve the dire situation that pervades Nigeria’s conflict-ridden northeast, while ensuring that incarcerated mothers and babies do not go unnoticed and unaccounted for.
Accountability is a key pillar to ensure that human rights are upheld, and no human rights warrants greater prioritisation than that of health equality. In addressing the issue at its root, mechanisms as simple as health records and registers have the power to transform the lives of vulnerable people around the world, making it a fairer and safer place.
Toyin Ojora Saraki is the founder and president of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, a pan-African maternal health and gender rights organisation.
