A consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr Richard Ajayi, has called for culturally responsive reproductive healthcare across Africa.
Ajayi, Founder and Executive Vice Chairman of Bridge Clinic Fertility Centre, Lagos, made the call on Monday in an interview with reporters.
He said healthcare providers, policymakers and investors must reflect the continent’s cultural and religious diversity in the design and delivery of specialised medical services.
He also said that treating Africa as a single healthcare market overlooked the continent’s diverse cultural, religious and social realities, particularly in specialised areas such as reproductive medicine.
According to him, healthcare systems that fail to recognise these differences risk losing public trust and limiting access to quality care.
“When global investors and health system architects look at the African continent, they often treat it as a single, homogeneous market destination.
“That is a significant structural error because Africa is not a monolith, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the deployment of specialised medicine.”
The consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist noted that nearly three decades of experience in fertility care had shown that patients’ beliefs, expectations and treatment preferences varied significantly across different regions.
He explained that while consultations in many parts of southern Nigeria often focused on educating patients about infertility, reproductive biology and treatment options, clinical practice in parts of northern Nigeria required greater sensitivity to religious beliefs that influenced healthcare decisions.
According to him, treatment options such as donor eggs, donor sperm and gestational surrogacy may not be acceptable to some patients because of their religious convictions.
“In such settings, there is little value in recommending options that patients consider religiously unacceptable.
“Healthcare providers must first understand the communities they serve and deliver care that respects patients’ values while maintaining the highest ethical and professional standards.”
The fertility expert further said culturally responsive healthcare should not be misconstrued as compromising scientific or clinical standards.
Rather, he said, it involved adapting healthcare delivery to local realities without sacrificing quality, safety or evidence-based practice.
He emphasised that patient-centred care required empathy, cultural competence and effective communication, especially in specialised medical fields where treatment decisions were often influenced by personal beliefs and family values.
He noted that sustainable expansion of specialised healthcare services across Africa would require flexible health systems capable of accommodating the continent’s diverse populations.
“We cannot successfully scale healthcare across emerging markets by imposing one standardised clinical model on every community.
“We must build healthcare systems that respect local values, uphold ethical practice and deliver world-class care within the cultural context of the people they serve,” Ajayi said.
He urged governments, development partners and private-sector investors to integrate cultural considerations into healthcare planning, saying such an approach would strengthen patient confidence, improve service uptake and contribute to better health outcomes.
According to him, recognising Africa’s cultural diversity is not a barrier to healthcare development but an essential factor in building resilient, inclusive and sustainable health systems.
He added that culturally informed healthcare policies would also support efforts to expand access to reproductive health services and advance universal health coverage across the continent.
