By Dr. Milliscent Nnwoka
I left the Future of Health Conference thinking less about the future than about the distance between possibility and everyday life.
There was much to reflect on: financing, technology, innovation, artificial intelligence and the work of turning ideas into impact.
But one question stayed with me. What does the future of healthcare mean to someone who still cannot afford the consultation, reach the facility or obtain the medicine?
That is not an argument against innovation. It is a question about whom innovation reaches.
As someone enrolled in health insurance, I listened to these figures with more than professional interest.
At the conference, the National Health Insurance Authority reported that health insurance enrolment had increased to 23.06 million, up from 16.2 million in late 2023. That is progress worth acknowledging.
But it also leaves an enormous distance between current enrolment and a promise of protection for everyone.
More importantly, enrolment is only the beginning of the question.NHIA Director-General Kelechi Ohiri acknowledged the difference between an insurance coverage record and genuine financial protection.
An insurance card must translate into access to a functional facility, essential medicines and protection against devastating costs, not simply exist in someone’s pocket.
That is an important distinction. Because can a person obtain treatment when they need it? Are the services they require included? What happens when the medicine is unavailable? Can they challenge an improper charge without spending weeks navigating a system they do not understand? We should count enrolment. We should also count what enrolment makes possible.
Innovation must survive the journey to the patient
Going through the booths and several health innovations, one point from the discussion stayed with me: innovation matters when it solves a real problem.
Health innovations must address practical problems, generate evidence, remain financially sustainable and become integrated into existing systems.
That is a demanding test, and the right one.
For every new health application, we should ask: who can use it? For every digital service: what happens to the person without reliable connectivity, a suitable phone or the confidence to navigate it?
For every promising pilot: who will own it, finance it and keep it working when the initial project ends? And no, these are not objections to technology. They are questions about its public value.
Nigeria Health Watch Managing Director Vivianne Ihekweazu also emphasised the financing, policies, procurement processes and data systems required to sustain innovations and expand their reach.
The challenge is not only to develop something promising, but to make it part of dependable care. The future should not arrive only where access is already easiest.
The real test is beyond the conference room
Nigeria is not short of a reform agenda. The Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative, the Health Renewal Compact and the Sector-Wide Approach are intended to strengthen coordination and align action.
The Basic Health Care Provision Fund and insurance arrangements address important parts of financing and service delivery.
There are more… But the public should not need to understand this architecture before benefiting from it.
The meaningful questions are closer to daily life. Can a woman obtain urgent maternity care without her family first finding money they do not have? Can someone living with a chronic condition sustain treatment? Can a person in a remote community reach appropriate care before a manageable illness becomes an emergency? Can I call an ambulance for an emergency and they would turn up without asking me to confirm if a doctor or hospital is willing to attend to the sick person before they even move? Can a household seek treatment without sacrificing food, rent or a child’s education?
These are the outcomes against which I want to understand progress, walahi!
Health communication is part of that test
As a communications professional, I also left thinking about what health communication must become in the age of AI.
I would judge it by more than the speed or volume of messages produced.
Do people understand what they are entitled to? Can they distinguish reliable advice from persuasive misinformation? Do they know where to seek help (unorthodox and orthodox means), what a service costs and how to make a complaint? And when institutions ask for trust, are they making themselves understandable and accountable?
The NHIA described steps including a mobile application, benefit information accessible through QR codes and a strengthened complaints system.
These are useful efforts to examine.
My question is how the same information and redress will reach people who cannot easily use those channels.
Communication should not merely announce that a service exists. It should help people obtain it.
The next emergency
The future of health also includes the next emergency. The ministry of health, the NCDC, WHO reports ongoing efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s surveillance, laboratories, outbreak preparedness and emergency response.
But I would not judge preparedness only by a national plan.
I would also ask whether a local facility can recognise a threat, whether information moves quickly, whether communities trust the advice they receive and whether people can afford to seek help early.
Routine care and emergency preparedness should not be competing visions of the future.
I keep returning to a simple thought: access to healthcare should not depend on being able to escape the system.
This is not about judging Nigerians who seek treatment abroad or health workers who leave. It is about what those who remain should reasonably expect.
Our measure of progress cannot be only the sophistication of our best-equipped facilities or the promise of our newest technologies.
It must also be the experience of people within and furthest from them. We cannot demonstrate the future of healthcare, where the people today cannot experience it.
The future of health may be here. But the test is who can reach it, and what happens when they do.
Dr. Milliscent Nnwoka is a journalist, development communication scholar and media literacy advocate whose work spans public-interest reporting, strategic communication and information integrity.
