By Eberechi Obinagwam
The Chief Executive Officer, African Business Coalition for Health (ABCHealth), Mories Atoki has said that to create sustainable solutions in the African health system, governments need to inject entrepreneurship into medicine, healthcare studies, and the school of nursing.
Atoki who stated this in a plenary session on a systemic approach to creating sustainable solutions in Africa’s healthcare system that was organised by a non governmental organization, Aspire Coronation Trust ACT Foundation at their 5th anniversary and breakfast dialogue with the theme: Shifting Paradigms: transforming our approach to addressing Africa’s challenges in Lagos said that the curriculum in education in Africa naturally does not imbibe what the medical practitioners needs now to takecare of the healthcare system in Africa to the next level.
She said incidentally, that our curriculum is the worse out of them. ”We should discuss the local issues like Nigeria and look at the curriculum in medical schools and deliberately inject entrepreneurship in medicine, healthcare, health economics and nursing schools. The government should see the values of investing in health entrepreneurs in getting healthcare solved because it seems they don’t recognize them as their next option in getting solutions solved,”
She also suggested that government should be responsible for providing for healthcare entrepreneurs to be able to make their business worthy at government’s level and also give them a revenue, “the primary healthcare needs a sustainable model and that model is a promising health entrepreneur who have access paid portfolio, and right partners to be able to make his business worthy at government’s level,” she said.
ACT foundation at their 6th annual conference background said for generations, African countries have confronted a myriad of social and economic challenges ranging from under investment in infrastructure to climate change, poor health systems, unemployment and underemployment, inequality, poor education, and poverty among others.
In the health sector, the foundation said that the healthcare system in Africa is persistently the worse in the world, “Infectious and non-communicable diseases are increasing rapidly on the continent and it constitutes enormous challenges given the dysfunctional organisation of our health system and inability to address the problems confronting us. Africa’s health burden has been further intensified by the devastating effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated the existing slow-paced economic growth.”
The Foundation further disclosed that these challenges are not only a crisis for the health sector but all sectors and have the potential to reverse the gain made in human development in the past few years.
In business, ACT Foundation said that with respect to enterprise development, Africa has witnessed a tremendous rise of businesses that have achieved billions of dollars in valuation.
However, the Foundation said that there are attendant challenges and barriers which need to be addressed in order to continually foster entrepreneurship growth which are; a dearth of entrepreneurship education to cater to the growing number of entrepreneurs, lack of government policies to support and improve the entrepreneurship landscape, access to capital, etc
Executive Director, Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, ( ANDE), Richenda Van Leeuwen at the plenary session advocated for local entrepreneurship, gender equality and digital service to creating sustainable solutions in Africa’s businesses.
“We need to employ local entrepreneurship. Government needs to know that small businesses serves as an engine to help build the developmental goal. Government should be able to support the local entrepreneur system by providing them with capital, electricity and digital service so that wherever they are they can contribute. From our analysis, women are having challenges to the use of data to do their businesses,” she said.
Also, Managing Director, Babban Gona, Kola Masha said to create a sustainable solutions in Africa insecurity needs to be addressed, then education, jobs, and Healthcare.