ROSEMARY IMOBHIO 
More than 30 pregnant women were left stranded at a government-owned hospital in Lekki after reportedly being denied antenatal registration. The incident raises questions about staffing, patient access and the systems protecting essential healthcare.
The Lagos State Government intervened on Tuesday, October 13, after pregnant women seeking antenatal care at the Mother and Child Hospital on Ogombo Road, Lekki, protested against an alleged registration limit of 45 patients. Some women said they had visited the facility repeatedly, only to be turned away.
The intervention secured an immediate response. However, the incident exposes a wider governance challenge. When public healthcare facilities struggle to meet demand, how can governments protect patients? Especially while ensuring that medical workers have the resources to provide safe, effective care.
For Lagos, the question extends beyond the registration of the affected women. It concerns the capacity of public institutions to deliver essential services consistently. Rather than relying on senior officials to resolve problems after they become public.
An Immediate Resolution, but Questions Remain
According to reports, some administrative staff told patients that the 45-person limit had been operating for more than a year. Women described arriving early and making several attempts to register without success.
One patient reportedly said it was her third visit to the hospital. Another said she arrived at approximately 6:40 a.m. but was still told that the available slots had been exhausted.
The complaints prompted Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, to contact the hospital’s managing director, Dr Femi Aletan. Hospital management subsequently apologised and said it was unaware of any policy restricting antenatal registration to 45 patients per week.
Management directed nurses to register the affected women. However, reports indicated that the process continued into the afternoon, with some patients still waiting at about 4 p.m.
The conflicting accounts require clarification. While some staff reportedly defended the limit as a reflection of the hospital’s capacity, management denied that an official restriction existed.
Establishing how the practice emerged, who authorised it and how long it operated would help determine whether this was a communication failure, a management oversight or an informal response to inadequate staffing.
Regardless, patients should not have to make repeated journeys to understand whether a public facility can accommodate them.
Why Antenatal Access Matters
Antenatal care provides opportunities to monitor maternal and foetal health, identify complications and offer preventive interventions throughout pregnancy. It also allows healthcare professionals to advise women on nutrition, warning signs and preparations for childbirth.
The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of eight antenatal care contacts during pregnancy to reduce perinatal mortality and improve women’s experiences of care. Consistent access is therefore an important part of maternal healthcare delivery. Nigeria continues to face substantial challenges in expanding that access.
UNICEF’s Situation Analysis of Children and Adolescents in Nigeria 2024, drawing on national survey data, reported that approximately 63 per cent of women received antenatal care from a skilled provider in 2023/24, compared with 67 per cent in 2018. The figures indicate that access has not followed a consistently improving trajectory.
The same report highlighted differences between urban and rural communities, with women in rural areas less likely to receive skilled antenatal care.
These national figures do not establish that the Lekki incident reflects a widespread practice among Lagos hospitals. Nevertheless, they demonstrate why access barriers deserve attention, even in urban areas where healthcare facilities may be more concentrated.
A registration dispute does not automatically mean a patient has suffered a medical complication. However, repeated unsuccessful visits can create additional transport costs and consume time. This make it harder for women to maintain consistent contact with healthcare professionals.
For women balancing employment, childcare and household responsibilities, these barriers can be significant.
Read Also: Can AI Help Close Nigeria’s Maternal Healthcare Gap?
The Workforce Challenge Behind the Incident
Hospital staff attributed the situation to a shortage of healthcare workers. A doctor described the pressure of working with a limited team and travelling from mainland Lagos to the facility.
He also highlighted the high cost of accommodation around the hospital, suggesting that staff housing could ease the burden.
Aletan similarly pointed to the migration of Nigerian healthcare professionals to countries offering better salaries and employment benefits.
These concerns align with wider findings from the Africa Health Observatory’s assessment of Nigeria’s health system. Its 2025 health workforce profile, updated in October 2026, identifies shortages, uneven staff distribution, poor remuneration and difficult working conditions as persistent challenges affecting service delivery.
The report also notes that Nigeria’s health workforce has grown, but not quickly enough to meet demand. Retaining experienced professionals remains a concern as some move abroad or relocate within the country.
The World Health Organization’s 2026 report on Africa’s health workforce adds another dimension. Across the continent, more professionals are being trained, yet shortages persist alongside unemployment and migration. This suggests that expanding training alone will not resolve the problem without corresponding investment in employment, deployment and retention.
For Lagos, these findings make workforce planning central to the accountability question. Hospitals need sufficient staff to manage patient numbers safely. Workers also need reasonable working conditions, appropriate remuneration and practical support to perform their duties.
However, shortages cannot become an indefinite justification for leaving patients without clear information or a workable route to care.
What Public Healthcare Accountability Requires
The Lagos incident highlights three areas requiring attention.
First, hospital management needs transparent and consistently applied registration procedures. Where capacity is limited, patients should receive clear information about available appointments, alternative facilities and the process for securing care. Repeated visits without resolution should not become the default arrangement.
Second, the state needs reliable information about staffing levels and patient demand. Without facility-level data, authorities may struggle to identify where additional personnel, improved scheduling or infrastructure investment would have the greatest effect.
Third, oversight must extend beyond emergency intervention. The commissioner’s directive addressed the immediate dispute, but the available reports do not establish whether a formal review, staffing assessment or corrective action plan followed.
These are important distinctions. Registering the women was a necessary immediate response. Preventing similar incidents requires identifying the operational failures that allowed the situation to develop.
The state should also clarify whether any registration limit was authorised, what standards govern antenatal intake at the facility and how patients can raise concerns when access is denied. Such measures would help protect patients while giving staff and managers clearer procedures for handling demand.
Beyond the Immediate Intervention
Public healthcare is a critical part of social development. Its performance affects household welfare, women’s economic participation and the ability of communities to access essential services.
For that reason, healthcare accountability should be assessed through more than announcements, facility openings or isolated interventions. It should also consider whether people can access services when they need them and whether public institutions respond effectively when problems arise.
The Lekki incident does not, on its own, establish the scale of the staffing problem across Lagos. It does, however, provide a concrete reason to examine how workforce constraints, administrative practices and management oversight interact at facility level.
The next test is whether the state can translate its intervention into clearer procedures, better workforce planning and reliable access to antenatal services.
For the women who arrived seeking care, registration was the immediate concern. For the public institution responsible for serving them, the responsibility extends further: ensuring that access does not depend on a complaint reaching the commissioner.
CSR Reporters will continue to examine how public institutions turn social commitments into services people can access, trust and depend on.
[give_form id="20698"]
