Leadership (Abuja)
21 May 2008
A fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science, Professor Adetokunbo Lucas, has attributed the decay in the nation's health sector to absence of science-based policies.
He said that health policies and programmes in the last 30 years, were not based on scientific evidence but on intuition.
Lucas made the observation yesterday in Abuja at the academy's roundtable on the health and power sector reforms in Nigeria held with journalists.
"The health situation will keep deteriorating if national, states and local policies and programmes are not driven by scientific knowledge," he said.
He called for the integration of science and technology into policy making as such initiative would fast-track healthcare delivery and national development.
"Nigeria's health indices in the 60s were better than some countries'. Today, they are far above it and yet nothing is done to reverse the trend," he said.
Lucas, who chairs NAS Forum on Evidence-based Health Policy making, said Nigeria ranked above Ghana and Togo on child maternal mortality rate, stressing that the situation was not healthy.
He urged the government to expand support to universities and research institutes to boost quality research tailored towards meeting the nation's health needs.
According to him, "research in universities and institutes are funded by foreign governments or donor agencies with their priorities that do not address national priorities".
Earlier, NAS executive secretary, Dr Akin Adubifa, said the roundtable was aimed at enhancing journalists' capacity to report science.
Adubifa said the forum would create a platform for journalists and fellows of the academy to communicate benefits of science to the society.(NAN)
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