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EHA Clinics accredited for ambulatory care

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By Abraham Adekunle

Nigerian medical facility EHA Clinics, has been accredited for ambulatory care.

The Chief Executive Officer of EHA Clinics, Adam Thompson has raised concerns for more Nigerians to be able to access quality healthcare in the country. He said this at a briefing in Abuja, which was to announce the medical facility’s approval for ambulatory care. This accreditation came as a result of the medical facility’s continued compliance with internationally-recognized quality standards. Thompson added that available statistics revealed that there were one million neo-natal deaths of people who could access essential healthcare services.

The reason for their deaths is not that they could not access healthcare but that they had poor care and lack of world-class quality standards. “They had access to care but just did not have access to quality care,” he said. “As a leading primary healthcare provider in Nigeria, our goal is to influence the private and public sectors to embrace the idea that the minimum standard of care should comprise access, affordability, and quality.”

Nigeria loses about 2,300 children under age five every day.

Nigeria is one of the countries with the highest number of poor people in the world. In 2018, Nigeria surpassed India as the world’s poverty capital, with around 87 million people living in extreme poverty, though Nigeria has been surpassed again by India in 2022. With this, a long-neglected primary healthcare system, and a population growing at an exponential rate, immense pressure has been put on the nation’s barely sustained healthcare system. This system is also dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.

Because of this, Nigeria loses about 2,300 children under the age of five every day. That is about 850,000 children lost every year because of the state of the healthcare system. The most populous black nation in the world also has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. According to UNICEF, 576 children die per 100,000 live births in Nigeria, the fourth highest in the world. Also, the number of stillbirth babies in Nigeria is the highest in the world, approximately 262,000 babies, which is the world’s second highest national total.

EHA Clinics is the first JCI-accredited clinic in sub-Saharan Africa.

Adam Thompson added that EHA Clinics (Kano) is the first primary healthcare clinic in sub-Saharan Africa to be accredited by the Joint Commission International (JCI) for ambulatory care. “We are proud to be transforming healthcare and setting the pace for primary healthcare standards in Nigeria and Africa at large,” he said. JCI standards define the performance expectations, structures, and functions that must be in place for an ambulatory care organization such as EHA Clinics to be accredited by JCI.

In a country where healthcare services are exorbitantly priced and heavily unsubsidized, EHA Clinics are promoting access to healthcare, affordability, and international quality standards for primary healthcare organizations in the country. Nigeria’s out-of-pocket health expenditure has been 70 per cent on average. Out-of-pocket health expenditure refers to payments that individuals make to access healthcare. This statistic shows that the three pillars of EHA Clinics are crucial to the well-being of Nigerians.

EHA Clinics underwent rigorous scrutiny before being accredited.

The Practice and Quality Assurance Manager of the clinic, Nada Hadiar also said at the briefing that EHA Clinics went through rigorous scrutiny before being accredited by the JCI. “The clinics underwent a rigorous on-site survey, during which a JCI team evaluated compliance with ambulatory care standards related to a variety of areas, including the International Patient Safety Goals, patient assessment and care, anaesthesia and surgical care, medication management, patient and family education, quality improvement, infection prevention and control, and information management, among others,” she said.


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JCI: Website


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