National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS): "Madam you are even lucky"

"Madam you are even lucky"

I have been pondering to understand what it means to be lucky in this context. A close friend of mine took her son yesterday the hospital following frequent complains from the son that "his eyes are disturbing him" and that he is having blurred vision and pains in both eyes. The woman became worried and decided to seek medical help as the boy complained on a night before that he could not see properly.
As a staff of FMC, Abuja she decided to access the health insurance in her hospital but was referred out to the National hospital for eye care. They were in the hospital as early as 8: 00am on that fateful Monday morning (25th June 2018). It took almost 6 hours to complete registration and to be eligible to see an eye doctor having been on different queues for the opening of the card and documentation.

Finally, it got to the turn of my friend to be attended to by the attending nurses at few minutes past 2'O clock who thought it will be an opportunity for her son to see the consulting clinician having waited patiently on the queue but alas she was told that her son  has been booked for 31st July, 2018 as they have exhausted the number of the patients to be seen for the day.

Perplexed, she queried why the son was booked for 31 July without any form of assessment considering the poor boy challenges and given that this is their first time to the hospital. Then came those shocking words that "Madam, you are even lucky to be booked on 31st July 2018-some patients were even booked on a later date".

This had kept me thinking of place of patient safety in our health sector. If this is happening in Abuja the FCT, you can only but imagine what will be happening in other states. What is the hope of common man in accessing quality health care in Nigeria?