Nigeria’s hospitals becoming morgues?

By The Conscience Chronicler

Let me begin with a fact that should shake every Nigerian to the marrow. The World Health Organisation has declared that in low- and middle-income countries, 60 per cent of deaths from conditions requiring healthcare are caused by poor-quality care, not by lack of access. Let that sink in.

For decades, we have been fixated on getting more Nigerians into hospitals, on building more primary healthcare centres, and expanding health insurance coverage.

We have assumed that once a patient crosses the threshold of a clinic or hospital, they will receive care that heals rather than harms. The WHO has now shattered that assumption. The killer is not the distance to the nearest hospital.

The killer is what happens or fails to happen inside the walls of the hospital itself.

Across Africa, poor-quality care now accounts for an estimated 60 per cent of maternal deaths and 56 per cent of neonatal deaths. Globally, between 5.7 and 8.4 million deaths are attributed to poor-quality care each year in low- and middle-income countries, representing up to 15 per cent of all deaths.

This is not a footnote in a medical journal. This is a genocide-by-negligence, perpetrated not by terrorists or bandits, but by the very institutions we trust to save us. And Nigeria, with its crumbling infrastructure, vanishing doctors, and culture of “anyhowness”, is ground zero for this epidemic.

The Numbers that scream
Let us examine the evidence. The United Nations World Population Prospects (2025) ranks Nigeria lowest in global life expectancy, at just 54.9 years – catastrophically below the global average of 73.7 years. Nigeria trails behind every other nation on earth. The average Nigerian man lives 54.3 years; the average Nigerian woman, 54.9 years.

We have been overtaken by countries that were once in similar or worse conditions. In 2019, Nigeria ranked third lowest globally; six years later, instead of progress, we have slipped further behind.
Maternal mortality continues to haunt us, with Nigeria accounting for nearly one-fifth of global maternal deaths annually.

Non-communicable diseases now account for about 29 per cent of deaths in Nigeria. Yet our government spends only 4 per cent of GDP on healthcare – far below the WHO’s recommended 15 per cent and the Abuja Declaration’s 15 per cent target.

Health spending as a share of overall government spending has fallen, from 7 per cent in 2015 to 4.3 per cent last year, even as health investment rose in nominal terms. The message is unmistakable: health receives more money, but less priority.

The faces behind the numbers
But statistics are cold. Let me give you the faces. In December 2025, Justice John lost his wife, Lovelyn, two weeks before their first wedding anniversary. She died after the delivery of their 4.2kg baby at a Lekki hospital in Lagos, from mismanaged Primary Postpartum Haemorrhage.

According to Justice, the consultant confirmed she was bleeding internally, yet took no active steps in referring or seeking specialist help. There was a clear 15-hour window between the delivery and her eventual passing. A blood transfusion was done without first identifying and repairing the source of bleeding. When Lovelyn began convulsing, no medical personnel were in sight.

There was no oxygen in the ward. When they finally tried to evacuate her, she fell off a stretcher onto the hard floor of a tiled walkway. Fifteen hours. No oxygen. A fall on a stretcher. This is not medicine. This is a death sentence delivered in instalments.

In September 2025, a pregnant woman, Mrs Ndiana Sunday Amos, died alongside her newborn at the General Hospital in Ikot Ekpene in Akwa Ibom State. Her sister posted a viral video showing the tragedy: there were no doctors, the theatre was unopened for over three hours as her sister suffered labour pains, and a doctor failed to turn up for duty.

The Akwa Ibom State Governor, Umo Eno, was moved to set up a 14-member investigative committee, declaring: “This tragedy was not due to lack of facilities or funding but personal negligence by a doctor who failed to turn up for duty. We cannot tolerate such dereliction of responsibility”. The Nigerian Medical Association rushed to caution against “rushing to conclusions”. But the video was already online. The damage was already done. A mother and her newborn child died because a doctor did not show up.

In January 2026, the nation was shaken by the death of Nkanu Nnamdi, the 21-month-old son of renowned author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The child was taken to Euracare Hospital in Lagos for an MRI scan and insertion of a central line. He was sedated with propofol but was not properly monitored. He suffered complications, including loss of responsiveness, seizures, and cardiac arrest. His mother wrote: “He would be alive today if not for an incident at Euracare Hospital”. The hospital has denied wrongdoing, and investigations have been conducted. I am not privy to the outcome.

But as Serah Makka wrote in TIME Africa Magazine: “While I cannot prejudge the facts of this particular case, Nigeria’s health system too often enables negligence and impunity, what many Nigerians simply call ‘anyhowness'”.

In Jigawa State, 25-year-old Sadiya Sirajo went into labour at 1 a.m. The health centre near her home was shut and lacked facilities for childbirth. She called the Primary Health Centre in Katanga; they said there were no health workers. She gave birth at home. The child did not cry. “They bathed him and took him to his true home (buried),” she stated almost without emotion. Jigawa has the highest under-five mortality rate in Nigeria, at 161 deaths per 1,000 live births. Neonatal mortality in the state increased from 46.8 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2018 to 52 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2024. This is not a health system.

This is a slaughterhouse.

In December 2025, a mother of five, Aishatu Umar Kano, died after a surgical procedure. A subsequent scan revealed that a pair of scissors had been left inside her body during a previous operation in September. For four months, she returned to the hospital complaining of pain. She was given pain relievers until it was too late.

These are not isolated tragedies. The Premium Times 2025 investigations documented how pregnant women and newborns were dying in rural communities across Akwa Ibom because primary healthcare centres lacked electricity, essential drugs, skilled health workers and functional referral systems. Billions of naira had been allocated to healthcare, yet frontline facilities remained neglected. Clinics were dilapidated, ambulances absent, health workers overstretched.

The brain drain: When those who can leave, leave

Why is the quality of care so abysmal? One reason is that the people trained to provide that care are fleeing the country in droves. According to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, about 2,000 newly qualified medical doctors are left without housemanship placement every year due to limited capacity in the centralised system. These are doctors who have spent years training, who are eager to work, who could be saving lives in rural clinics, and they are told there is no room for them. What do they do? They leave.

They go to the UK, Canada, the US, and Saudi Arabia. And Nigeria, already suffering from a catastrophic doctor-to-patient ratio, loses another cohort of healers. Those who remain are overworked, underpaid, and increasingly demoralised. The patient-to-doctor ratio lengthens, wait times increase, treatment outcomes worsen, and mortality rises.

The emergency care collapse
Even when a patient manages to reach a hospital, the emergency response system is broken. A Q1 2026 industry report revealed that only 7% of emergency cases in Nigeria are handled by public ambulances. Commercial buses account for 47 per cent of emergency transport, while 31 per cent of patients reach hospitals by private vehicle or walk-in. Nigeria records more than six million medical emergencies every year, yet coverage by the National Emergency Medical Services and Ambulance System (NEMSAS) remains below 0.2 per cent.

The report warned that delayed treatment is costing lives, estimating that 10 to 15 per cent of Nigeria’s 1.6 million annual deaths occur within emergency departments, largely because patients arrive too late or without pre-hospital stabilisation.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria records a yearly death rate of 2.4 million, and 50 per cent of these deaths could be avoided with effective emergency medical service. In practical terms, nearly 65 per cent of Nigerians lack access to an ambulance during an emergency. Instead, families have to carry patients in the back of a car to an overcrowded hospital that turns them away because they cannot pay up front.

The government’s response: Too little, too late?

To its credit, the Federal Government has acknowledged the crisis. The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, announced the establishment of a National Task Force on Clinical Governance and Patient Safety.

The statement noted that “preventable deaths and disabilities because of poor quality care are still spoiling the gains we have made”. It admitted that there are “many problems” in the health system, including misdiagnosis, poor communication with patients, weak accountability, fragmented service delivery, and limited capacity in the health workforce. The task force has been given terms of reference to develop national frameworks and guidelines for patient safety and clinical governance.

But The Conscience Chronicler is not impressed by committees. We have had committees before. We have had task forces, blue-ribbon panels, technical working groups, and all the other furniture of Nigerian governance. What we have not had is accountability. What we have not had is prosecution. What we have not had is a single doctor or hospital administrator jailed for negligence that results in death.

The impunity must end
The WHO estimates that high-quality health systems could prevent 2.5 million deaths from cardiovascular disease, 900,000 deaths from tuberculosis, 1 million newborn deaths and half of all maternal deaths each year. These are not aspirational targets. They are achievable goals if we have the political will.

But political will requires consequences. The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria has the statutory power to adjudicate on cases of professional misconduct, but it is notoriously slow and opaque.

The Nigerian Medical Association rushes to defend its members before investigations are complete. Hospitals that kill patients through negligence face no sanctions. Doctors who abandon duty face no consequences. The message is clear: in Nigeria, you can kill a patient and walk away.

This must change. The National Assembly must enact legislation that makes medical negligence resulting in death a criminal offence with mandatory prison terms.

The Medical and Dental Council must be reformed to operate transparently and swiftly. Hospitals must carry malpractice insurance and report all adverse events. And the government must create a national patient safety database, so that patterns of negligence can be identified and addressed before more lives are lost.

A call to every Nigerian
The Conscience Chronicler speaks now to every Nigerian who has lost a loved one to medical negligence. Your grief is not invisible. Your anger is not unreasonable. Your demand for justice is not excessive.

Speak out. Report cases to the Medical and Dental Council. Take hospitals to court. Use social media to name and shame, but do not let your anger dissipate into online outrage alone. Join patient advocacy groups. Demand that your state governments establish patient safety ombudsmen.

And especially now, when elections have come, ask every candidate: What will you do to make our hospitals equitably accessible and safe?

To the medical professionals who remain in Nigeria despite the temptation to leave. You are not the enemy. Most of you work under impossible conditions – long hours, low pay, inadequate equipment, and a system that sets you up to fail. But you have a choice. You can be the ones who stay and fight for change, who refuse to accept “anyhowness”, who hold your colleagues accountable, who make patient safety your uncompromising priority. History will remember you.

To the government, to President Bola Tinubu, to the Minister of Health, Muhammad Pate, to the governors of all 36 states. You have the power to save lives. Not through press releases or task forces, but through budgets, through enforcement, through the simple act of treating every Nigerian life as though it were your own child, your own spouse, your own parent. The WHO’s 60 per cent statistic is not a warning. It is an indictment. It says that when Nigerians fall sick, they are more likely to be killed by poor care than to be saved by access to care. That is a national disgrace.

The Conscience Chronicler will not be silent. Neither should you. Let the quality killer be named. Let the negligent be held accountable. Let the preventable deaths stop. And let the healing begin.

TheConscienceChronicler.