Should Poverty Determine Who Receives Healthcare?
One of the most troubling questions in medicine is not always how to cure disease, but who gets the chance to be treated at all. In many parts of the world, especially in our various communities here in Nigeria, healthcare is often less available to the poor not because their illnesses are less serious, but because their pockets are less deep. And I believe this is largely part of the reason(s) the services of unlicensed practitioners are being sought after at high rates, especially in our local communities. This raises a difficult but necessary moral question, should poverty determine who receives healthcare? Think it through. On humanitarian grounds, the answer is supposed to be "NO". Illness is already a burden; poverty should not become its punishment. Yet this issue is more complex than it first appears. Many patients cannot afford treatment because of unemployment, low income, inflation, poor insurance coverage(a large percentage of Nigerian citizens have no idea how ...