Services in private hospitals are considered to be superior to those of public hospitals. Research on the
service quality in hospitals in developing countries is scarce, as is comparison of the customer-perceived
quality of the two types of healthcare systems. The present study compares the perceived quality of
private and public health services in Nigeria. The results show positive perceptions of both healthcare
systems. However, when high-level hospitals were excluded, the scores for the private hospitals were
higher. These findings are in line with earlier studies on hospitals in developed countries, but differ from
previous findings on healthcare in developing countries.