In emergency medicine, time is everything. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls the first 60 minutes after a medical emergency the “golden hour” a brief window where prompt care can mean the difference between life and death and recommends ambulance response time of under 8 minutes for life-threatening cases.
In Nigeria, that benchmark is not just missed; it is shattered. Across the country, national ambulance response times exceed 45 minutes, more than five times the global ideal. Even in Lagos, Nigeria’s most advanced emergency care hub, average response times hover around 17 minutes and often exceed one hour in critical cases. In Abuja and other cities, arrivals of 60 minutes or more are not uncommon.
To put this in context, the UK’s NHS mandates a 7-minute average response time for the most critical emergencies, with strict performance monitoring. Vienna averages about 15 minutes, while major Brazilian cities like São Paulo report 21–27 minutes. These systems are not perfect, but they recognise that delay costs lives.
Nigeria’s reality is harsher. Over 92% of emergency patients arrive at hospitals without any pre-hospital care or ambulance support, relying on private cars, taxis, or sheer luck. Survival, in many cases, becomes a gamble.
This failure persists despite the law. Nigerian legislation guarantees citizens the right to immediate, life-saving treatment, yet enforcement remains weak. The Healthcare Federation of Nigeria (HFN) reports that less than 10% of federal emergency care funds have reached frontline services since the fund’s creation. HFN identifies the root causes clearly: low public trust in emergency numbers 112 and 767, fragmented governance, poor coordination between agencies, unreliable funding, weak dispatch technology, minimal insurance coverage for pre-hospital care, and the chronic underuse of private sector capacity.
These systemic gaps sit atop deeper structural problems. Did you know that Nigeria was ranked 142nd out of 195 countries for healthcare access and quality?
Yes, there are exceptions. Some private, tech-enabled emergency services in major cities report 8-10 minute response times for their clients. But emergency care cannot be a luxury subscription. It must be a public guarantee. Government initiatives such as the National Emergency Medical Service and Ambulance System (NEMSAS) and the 48-hour free emergency treatment policy are steps in the right direction. Still, without clear national response-time targets, transparent funding, and strict accountability, these policies risk becoming promises on paper.
So, what is Nigeria’s actual emergency response time? Far too slow, and fatally so.
Until emergency response time is treated as a measurable indicator of governance, not a vague aspiration, Nigerians will continue to lose lives, not because help was impossible, but because it arrived too late.
