BY CHIOMA OBINNA

To ensure healthy living among Nigerians, Live Well Initiative (LWI), a health promotion non – governmental organisation which empowers people through health illiteracy has launched its training arm, Live Well Initiative Academy. The Chief Executive, Mrs. Bisi Bright, said the Academy evolved out of the need to fill a gap in the social space which transcends from the health sector to economic, psychological, behaviourial and social gaps.

Bright said the goal is to reduce health illiteracy in the country by half by 2030.

She added that 20 professionals run its core faculty and have trained at least 800 Nigerians in various fields.

“We also want to help increase the life expectancy of Nigerians to 70 by 2030. In the past three years, we have covered over a million Nigerians from different sectors of the economy. Our slogan, “Promoting Wellness and Preventing Ill Health” is also to show that people can live well by learning to do so.”

Lamenting health-illiteracy among Nigerians, she described it as a nagging social gap which diminishes quality and quantity of life without the sufferer truly realising it.

“LWI seeks to fill social gaps through its activities and programmes. It seeks to enrich mind, body and soul with resultant completeness which will help to promote longevity. “

In the developed world, there is clinical governance, which audits the health sector, to ensure that clinical governance is adhered to. In such places, there is adherence, concordance and clinical audit. Somebody is accountable. But in Nigeria today, nobody wants to hear about these because there are so much in the health sector that needs to be cleaned up and this is why Nigerians will keep on suffering. Here, nobody is accountable,” she pointed out.