Nigeria’s health stakeholders have called for urgent and coordinated reforms to improve rehabilitation services following an assessment that exposed significant gaps in the country’s rehabilitation system.
They made the call in a communiqué issued on Monday after the National Stakeholders’ Validation Meeting on implementing Rehabilitation 2030 through WHO’s STARS and Rehabilitation Maturity Model frameworks. The communiqué was signed by the Rehabilitation Technical Group.
The meeting brought together representatives from ministries, agencies, academia, development partners, professional bodies, and service providers to assess rehabilitation capacity, performance, and maturity across six key healthcare domains.
According to the communiqué, none of the 50 assessed components performed optimally. Only two showed strong performance, 16 required strengthening, and 32 remained underdeveloped, necessitating urgent system-wide intervention.
Stakeholders identified weak governance, inadequate financing, poor data systems, workforce shortages, uneven infrastructure, and limited service accessibility as major challenges.
The communiqué noted that rehabilitation is not explicitly reflected in national health policies, while leadership and coordination remain weak. Current efforts are largely driven by the Medical Rehabilitation Therapists Board (MRTB) without sufficient institutional support.
Participants observed the absence of a dedicated rehabilitation budget and limited insurance coverage, which forces many Nigerians to rely on out-of-pocket payments.
They also raised concerns over the lack of routine rehabilitation data in the national health information system, shortages of professionals, limited training institutions, and poor workforce distribution, especially at the primary healthcare level.
Rehabilitation services remain largely concentrated in a few tertiary facilities, with minimal community-based services in the public sector. Low awareness among healthcare workers and communities further hinders referrals and utilisation.
Despite these challenges, stakeholders acknowledged moderate progress, including patient-centred care in acute settings, existing referral systems, and gradual alignment of training programmes with global standards.
As next steps, the stakeholders resolved to produce a comprehensive validation report within two weeks and submit a revised STARS report to the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare alongside the MRTB before the June 9 deadline.
They also agreed to continue consultations toward developing a National Rehabilitation Policy, a costed implementation plan, and state-level adoption of reforms through the National Council on Health.
The stakeholders emphasised the need for sustained advocacy, stronger national ownership, and effective monitoring to achieve long-term improvement in rehabilitation services across Nigeria.
