As G20 Finance Ministers meet to discuss how they will build back from the COVID-19 pandemic, WaterAid Nigeria, a non governmental Organization, has urged global leaders to spend at least $1.2 billion to ensure all hospitals and clinics, particularly within the world’s poorest countries, have clean water, decent toilets and proper hand washing facilities.
WaterAid Nigeria in a press statement signed by the Country Director, Evelyn Mere to commemorate the World Health Day, noted that since the onset of COVID-19, rich countries have spent significant sums, an average of nearly 10% of their GDP, and a total of $20.6 trillion, on stimulus packages to help bolster their economies and to recover from the pandemic.
“The sum needed, $1.2 billion, equates to just thirty minutes-worth of the past year’s spending. This investment would bring these vital frontline defences against future pandemics to all healthcare facilities in the poorest nations.”
In Nigeria, millions of people are at higher risk of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases as 96% of all healthcare centres in Nigeria lack access to basic water, sanitation and hygiene services a situation which is putting the lives of doctors, nurses, midwives and patients at risk.
She noted that providing doctors, nurses and patients with somewhere to clean their hands is one of the most effective ways to halt the spread of disease.
“Every healthcare centre in Nigeria could have taps and toilets for just half-an-hour’s worth of COVID-19 spending.
“Whilst vaccines and therapeutics are urgently needed, lives are being put at risk every day because the very basics of disease prevention are being ignored. An essential injection of finance by the G20 would prevent millions of avoidable deaths through infections and diseases.
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Evelyn Mere said, “Spending at least £1.2 billion on water, sanitation and hygiene for healthcare centres is a no-brainer investment, both saving lives now and also protecting against future pandemics and the devastation they cause.
“This sum equates to just thirty minutes-worth of what has been spent over the last year on Covid response packages. Yet it could change everything for the millions who have no option but to seek care from the 50 per cent of health care facilities in the poorest countries which don’t have clean water.
“We must find the money needed as a matter of urgency, to make sure all healthcare facilities in the poorest countries have clean water and soap before another pandemic hits. If frontline health workers can’t wash their hands, keep patients clean or have somewhere decent to go to the toilet, a hospital is not a hospital at all – it’s a breeding ground for disease.”
WaterAid, an international not-for-profit organisation, is working to make clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere within a generation.
