Nigeria Spends 72 Kobo of Every Health Naira Out of Pocket. BalmEHR Is Betting Infrastructure Can Fix That

There is a number that explains most of what is broken in Nigerian healthcare. In 2023, 71.9 percent of all health expenditure in Nigeria came directly out of patients' pockets at the point of care, according to World Bank and WHO figures. Not insurance, not government, not donors, but cash handed over at a counter by someone who may not have it. Total health spending works out to about US$67 per person per year. There are 0.38 physicians per 1,000 Nigerians, roughly one doctor for every 2,600 people, against a WHO benchmark closer to one per thousand. Maternal mortality sits at 993 per 100,000 live births. And 37.5 percent of the population has no grid electricity. Those five numbers are the design brief for BalmEHR ( balmehr.com ), which went live on 2 July 2026. It is not framed as an electronic records product but as digital healthcare infrastructure: software, hardware, connectivity, power, and training delivered as one bundle, at no upfront cost to the facility. T...
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