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By Oluwatobi Opusunju
Technology can help alter Nigeria’s sad narrative in healthcare delivery, Executive Director of PPC Integrated Systems (PPC), Mr. Ayo Grillo has told IT Edge News in a recent interaction in Lagos.
According to him, for health care services to be affordable and accessible in Nigeria, the government needs to quit its brick and mortar approach to doing things and adopt emerging technologies to ensure that basic healthcare services are provided to all citizens at affordable rates. Nigeria is struggling to provide its over 190 million population with basic healthcare services in a system that is ruptured and pricey.
“Government needs to focus on primary healthcare provision and try to modernize it for the effective provision of accessible health care; government needs to deploy a range of IT facilities just to make sure that services are provided, ” he said.
“Technology has a great role to play in the health sector and there is no doubt about this; low cost technology can provide some of these facilities and functions to provide accessible health care to people either at home or at the primary health centres through cheap medical devices, ” he added.
Grillo said absence of political willpower and short sightedness has impeded the health sector. PPC offers cutting edge tech solutions in the healthcare sector and vast experience in managing g health services delivery through managed technology.
He considered it unfortunate that there still exist a huge gap between the government’s views of healthcare provisions and how the private sector sees the industry.
Only a public-private partnership (PPP) model can help address the gaping holes, he told IT Edge News. Government needs private sector experience and investment to leapfrog healthcare delivery and save the country billions wasted yearly on healthcare tourism abroad.
“There is a lot of thinking that needs to go hand in hand with the private sector for the public sector to get it right. And currently we are still far away from there, which is why there is a huge gap in terms of affordable provision,” said Grillo.
