ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE NIGERIAN HEALTHCARE SECTOR: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF OPERATIONAL LIMITATIONS AND PATIENT SAFETY

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration in Nigeria’s healthcare system has a great potential to improve diagnostic accuracy, increase patients’ access, and streamline the operations. However, this tech trend shakes up the whole medico, legal set, up that is currently designed for human clinical decision, making only. This paper, therefore, takes a critical look at the inadequacy of the existing Nigerian legal and ethical frameworks to protect patients’ constitutional and statutory rights to safety in AI, based healthcare. The paper, by way of doctrinal analysis of case law, statutory and literature review, shows that the regulatory environment in Nigeria is essentially deficient in handling distributed liability, algorithmic opacity, among others. Building on studies that report 79.5% of Nigerian pediatric surgeons are at a loss of the confidence in the existing legal frameworks and 96.6% are raising serious concerns about accountability for AI, induced adverse outcomes, the article, therefore, posits that a lack of proactive regulation is a systemic failure of the institutional responsibility. The paper recommends amendments to the Evidence Act 2011, the extension of NAFDAC oversight to Software as a Medical Device, among others.