Unreliable health care financing undermines the wellbeing of older people in Nigeria – a growing population facing significant vulnerabilities due to age-related health challenges, limited financial resources, and inadequate social support. We use an exploratory sequential mixed-methods research technique to collect primary data from 32 key informants and 430 respondents in Ibadan. The qualitative and quantitative data were analysed using thematic and descriptive analyses respectively. Our results revealed that though older people largely expected to receive social support for health care mostly from state actors, household members, non-state actors and community members, the reality seems to be that they received the least support from state actors, community members, non-state actors and household members in that order. Furthermore, the results showed that the government’s instrumental support was highly coveted and seemed to be the last hope for vulnerable older people. Concerted efforts are required to provide adequate social support for older people and for healthy ageing.
Oyekola et al. (Wed,) studied this question.