Dr Uchenna Adizua, a Consultant Chemical Pathologist at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Umuahia, has urged Nigerians to eat healthy foods, observe hygienic practices and do everything possible to prevent illness.
Adizua, who spoke to reporters in Umuahia on Saturday, said “the risk of treating a sickness in Nigeria is too high to allow it”.
He said the risks had increased due to several prevailing factors that were compromising treatment options and making it more difficult to survive illness, while treatment and recovery in hospitals had become tougher nationwide.
“To fall sick in Nigeria today is to gamble with more than your health.
“It is to gamble with your savings, your dignity, and sometimes your life.”
He warned that illness could quickly become a financial and personal burden for ordinary families, particularly households already struggling to meet basic daily expenses.
“The harsh economic reality we face has turned hospitals into places of impossible choices,” he said.
He urged families to protect their health because treatment costs could quickly become financially overwhelming.
He noted that economic hardship had become a major obstacle to recovery, as many Nigerians now live in multidimensional poverty and struggle to afford essential healthcare and other household expenses.
“Millions of Nigerians live in multidimensional poverty, and that means no steady income, no health insurance and no buffer when a child develops a fever or a parent collapses at work.
“A single admission, a scan or a course of drugs can wipe out months of earnings.”
He said such costs could force families to choose between treatment and other essential needs.
“For many families, the decision is not which hospital is best, but which bill can be postponed without someone dying,” he noted.
The consultant emphasised that the burden of ill health in Nigeria was now heavier because the government had not made health a priority in national planning and public spending in recent years.
He said budgetary allocations to the health sector remained insufficient to run functional primary healthcare centres, equip tertiary hospitals or pay health workers adequately and sustainably across the country.
“As a result, wards are overcrowded, essential medicines are out of stock, and diagnostic equipment sits idle for lack of reagents and maintenance.
“The shortages continue and affect patient care nationwide.
“The system asks citizens to pay out of pocket for a service that should be a basic right or covered by social health insurance.
“The people trained to run that system are leaving in droves,” he said, as working conditions deteriorated and vacancies persisted across facilities nationwide, with serious consequences for patients.
According to him, the medical sector brain drain was not a rumour but a reality, and its impact was increasingly visible in hospitals, laboratories, clinics, pharmacies and specialist services nationwide.
“It practically shows in the empty consultants’ offices, a junior doctor covering three units, the nurses who have migrated and the laboratory scientist who now works abroad,” he said.
The consultant said the search for greener pastures abroad had stripped Nigerian hospitals of thousands of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, scientists and other health professionals, weakening services nationwide and leaving patients underserved.
“Those of us who remained do so with commitment, but we are stretched thin,” he said.
He said limited staffing placed additional pressure on remaining workers and patients across hospitals.
“Expertise is leaving faster than it can be replaced, and patients feel it in longer wait times, delayed results, absence of drugs and burnt-out staff, so this is not the time to fall sick,” he said.
Adizua said people should avoid falling sick “not because sickness is a choice, but because the safety nets that should catch you are full of holes.”
He therefore emphasised the need for prevention, which he said had “become the most affordable treatment now”.
He urged citizens to adopt practical habits that could reduce avoidable illnesses and healthcare costs.
“So, clean water, balanced meals, rest, routine checks, and managing hypertension or diabetes are now survival strategies rather than lifestyle tips,” he said.
He urged Nigerians to treat prevention as essential.
“We must say this plainly so that leaders and decision-makers in our society will hear it: health cannot wait.”
He called on policymakers to act urgently and ensure that healthcare received sustained attention.
“Until funding matches the need, workers are retained with adequate pay and working conditions that respect their training, and until poverty is tackled as a health issue, Nigerians will keep paying the highest price for getting ill.”
He urged Nigerians to guard their health seriously, saying prevention mattered because lives depended on it every day.
