| dc.description.abstract | This study was conceptualized to assess the effect of health policy in terms of implementation on the management of health emergencies in Nigeria using the COVID-19 pandemic as a test case. The following objectives were set out viz:
i. identify the communication strategy used by NCDC to control the spread of Covid-
19 in Nigeria; ii. find out citizens’ response to NCDC’s COVID-19 protocols in Nigeria;
iii. ascertain how NCDC protocols affected the management of health emergencies in
Nigeria and; iv. determine the factors limiting the development of the public health system in Nigeria.
These objectives were transformed into research questions that formed the bedrock of the research. To establish the intellectual footpath for the study, the systems theory and the structural functionalism theory were reviewed as anchors. The researcher further adopted the descriptive survey design as the research methodology guiding the study. The basic population was the 500 members of staff of the NCDC and the residents of Rivers State as of the year 2022 from which a final sample of 350 respondents was drawn using the Krejcie and Morgan (1970) formula. The questionnaire was the basic tool for data gathering and the data were analysed using the Weighted Mean Scores on a Four-Point Likert Scale.
The study found among other things that: the basic strategy for the communication of the health policy by the NCDC was the utilization of the electronic media and the Internet. Even though there were other modes of interface with other agencies of government involved in the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Internet and the electronic media featured more. This made the sharing of information easy and faster, removing several bureaucratic bottlenecks in the information dissemination process.
The study further found that citizens of Nigeria never found the news of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic funny and therefore were very skeptical about its realism. The multiple regulations cum protocols which tended to control the daily life routine of the citizens made the believability of the existence of the disease difficult. This created a lot of resistance on the part of the citizens and subsequent disdain for COVID-19 protocols.
The study also found that the policy utilised in the management of the COVID-19 saga was most rash and incompatible with what was obtainable in the Nigerian health system. Consequently, the health system was unable to cope with the dictates of the Covid-19 management policy. Many healthcare facilities were therefore adversely affected to the extent that most of them were not accredited as centres that could handle Covid-19-related cases, forcing the government to create emergency healthcare tents with a shortage of manpower to grapple with.
The study then found that some of the challenges that were limiting the growth of the healthcare system in Nigeria had to do with poor funding of the health sector by the government, lack of effective implementation of national health policies and manpower shortages- a situation where Nigerian trained health care professionals prefer to practice outside the country because of government neglect. And even when they decide to stay, they prefer private medical practice to working on the side of the government. | en_US |
