The World Health Organization (W.H.O) declared Corona Virus (COVID-19) a global pandemic in February 2020, Globally, responses have been swift and in full influenza pandemic control mode. Travel and movement restrictions to curtail spread both within and across cities are in force. Many cities around the world are in lockdown or lock-in mode. Some have issued dusk-to-dawn curfews. In other scenarios, large gatherings have either been banned or discouraged. Estimates suggest that this pandemic can claim the lives of as many as 40 million people globally (van Elsland et al, 2020). The Spanish flu, which lasted between 1918 and 1920 in some places, has been estimated to have cost the lives of 21-50 million people globally (W. H. O, 2012). The WHO global influenza preparedness plan presents guidelines for the management and control of influenza and other disease. Nigeria, one of the countries that adopts WHO guidelines, has over 493 cases of COVID-19 as of April 17, 2020, with 17 mortalities (NCDC, 2020). This is a substantial increase since the index case was reported on February 27, 2020. To better manage the spread, Nigeria’s federal government has declared a lockdown in key affected states (i.e., Lagos, Ogun, and the Federal Capital Territory). The lockdown was in addition to several mitigating actions by state governments, ranging from a ban on social gatherings to dusk-to-dawn curfews. During the lockdown, schools, markets, churches, mosques, banks, offices, parks, motor parks, and airports remain closed, often for a 14-day period.
Predictably, the lockdown has affected everyone economically especially the poor, this is why every government must cushion the effects of the lockdown by providing palliates for its poor citizens who are mostly affected, In Nigeria this job is handled by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management.
Palliative care is gaining acceptance as an important orientation for treatment in humanitarian crisis settings. A growing base of guidance and policy is developing in international aid organizations, influenced by recent examples of contexts where palliative interventions were essential in responding to patient needs. In autumn 2016, the Humanitarian Health Ethics research group in collaboration with the international group Palliative Care in Humanitarian Aid Situations & Emergencies (PALCHASE) set out to review the literature pertaining to palliative care needs and practices in humanitarian settings. This review contributes to current discussions and development of recommendations within the field of humanitarian healthcare aimed at clarifying how best to respond to palliative care needs in humanitarian crises.
A palliative is a remedy that alleviates pain without curing it, the palliative is not an unemployment cheque neither is it for everybody, the palliative is meant for the poorest citizens who require daily work to make their daily bread. A palliative distribution system will require the affected citizens to make claims, then followed by an investigation/confirmation to show that they fit into the poor citizens group and then electronic confirmation for distributed palliative to avoid double sharing.
Presently, the process for filling claims will differ from location to location as some state would recommend religious identification, some states will use residential home location and some will use work/trade union for the distribution, whatever process a state decides to use, they will end up uploading the citizen data in group called cell. The next phase which is investigating will require small committees of investigators for each cell group, to qualify as poor one must meet certain criteria.
The last phase is distributing the palliative to qualified citizens and keeping an electronic record to ensure everyone get it and nobody takes two.
The economic science of palliative distribution has not fully adapted to take advantage of the twenty-first century computer technology, the current system which is mostly manual is slow, problematic, corruption prone and not efficient for large scale projects. The researcher has an intention of computerizing the entire palliative process by making the citizens get registered, sending timely information (messages) so the citizens can stay informed, the system will. The process will also skip the middle men in palliative payment to reduce corruption. The introduction of Information Technology in palliative distribution will not only favor the citizens, it will increase the good public view of the government/agency distributing the palliative.
This research work will tackle problem faced by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management in the process of distributing palliatives with a full dependence on the manual method, some of these problems are;
The aim of this research is to design and implement a web based palliatives distribution system for the poorest of Nigerians.
The specific objectives are:
This project report describes a new system of distributing palliative to the poorest citizens of Nigeria, significant problems and drawbacks were addressed through IT solutions, it also describes the software functional and nonfunctional requirements of the Web Based Palliative Claim Processing System. This document is intended to be used by the members of the project team (the Ministry of Humanitarian Affair and Disaster Management) that will implement and verify the correct functioning of the system. Unless otherwise noted, all requirements specified here is high priority.
The Web Based Palliative Claims Processing System (WPCPS) will permit to enter new claim by poor citizens, track the claim status and maintaining master information. The main users of the project are Citizens of a Country (Nigeria in this case) and Employee of PCPD – Palliative Claim Processing Department a section of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management.
From an end-user perspective, the Web Based Palliative Claims Processing System Project consists of two functional elements: enhanced Citizens modules for Login, apply for new claim, view status of already applied claim. And a Palliative Claims Processing Department (PCPD) module for approve/reject claim, view pending status, Add/Edit citizen’s details.
1.6 Limitation of Study
As a limitation, the software developed by the researcher can only solve the problems in the distribution section of PCPD, this is because:
1.7 Definition of Terms
Citizens: A native or naturalized member of a state or other political community
Database: a systematically arranged collection of data, designed so that it can be automatically retrieved or manipulated easily by authorized users.
Data consistency: Data consistency ensures a consistent view of data to every user.
Data security: Data security prevents unauthorized users from viewing or updating the database by the use of passwords.
Information: Data that has been worked upon and processed.
Palliative: A Remedy that alleviates pain without curing it.
Pandemic: An epidemic that is geographically widespread occurring throughout a region or even the world Password: this is a secret code that a user must type into a computer to enable He/she access it or its applications. This is made up of numbers, letters, characters or contribution of any of the above categories.
Software: a software is a collection of written programs which directs the computer on what to do.