Equity, Fairness and Universal Access – The Key to Better Health : A Comparative Analysis of Nigerian, British and Canadian Health Systems

A common feature of all high performing health systems is their anchor on equity, fairness and universal access to health services – the trinity of better health. While some countries, such as Britain and Canada, have attained this threshold, others with nascent and fragile health systems, like Nigeria, are still struggling to lay the necessary foundations. These foundations are represented in Nigeria’s National Health Act 2008 (NHA) and National Health Insurance Scheme Act 1999 (NHIS). In Canada, the central health legislation is the Canada Health Act 1985(CHA), itself a consolidation of two prior federal legislation, namely, the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act 1957 and the Medical Care Act 1966, and the principal health legislation in Britain is the British National Health Service Act (NHSA) 1946. This paper compares the legal and policy frameworks in Nigeria with key provisions of the NHSA and CHA as a basis for improving health in the former. By juxtaposing the health frameworks in the three countries, the paper brings to the fore the deficiencies in the Nigerian system and shows how to remedy them