Chief Medical Director of the Federal Medical Centre, Bida, Dr. Mohammed Usman, on Sunday said that people seeking medical treatments outside the country are the bane of successes of healthcare policies and operations in the country.
Usman, who was the guest speaker at the annual general meeting of the Kutigi Old Students Association and election, said this while presenting a paper on the theme ‘Medical Tourism, Matters Arising,’ in Minna.
He said that in order to reduce the tide of domestic and international medical tourism, Nigeria would have to change its healthcare policies and patterns of operations.
“This change should accommodate the healthcare needs of Nigerians at lesser cost but on the right standard,” he said.
According to him, the failure of primary healthcare structures within states and the country has been a major contributor to why most Nigerians travel abroad for medical care.
Usman noted that there was the need for a review of all issues that fuels medical tourism such as the restructuring of the structures viz: the primary, the secondary and the tertiary facilities as a way forward.
He said that the Federal Government had released between 70 percent and 100 percent financial intervention to the health sector since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic for the provision of medical equipment, consumable and manpower training.
Usman said that such investment and intervention in the healthcare sector had led to a reversal in medical tourism.
In his address, Gov. Abubakar Bello of Niger decried the huge resources spent on medical tourism in the state, saying that it could be channeled into overhauling the healthcare sector.
Bello, who was represented by Dr Muhammed Makusidi, the state Commissioner forb Health, said that the state government spent over N300 million on medical tourism for indigent citizens in 2019.
He noted that after that, the state government came up with a strategic plan to revitalise its healthcare system aimed at reducing medical tourism.
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“We realised during the COVID-19 pandemic that if we don’t kill medical tourism, it will kill our healthcare sector. COVID-19 exposed many wrongs in our health sector, we needed to come up with a development plan for COVID-19 and post COVID-19.
“In 2020, we were given N20 million for medical assistance from the state government. Since people were not able to travel out, we were referring patients to our tertiary healthcare institutions within the state and across the country,” he said.
In his remarks, Alhaji Abdullahi Isah , the newly elected National President of the Association, said the association would continue to complement the efforts of the state government in ensuring better learning environment for their students.
Read Also: Health Minister Begs Nigerians To Shun Medical Tourism
He called on the members of the association across the country to unite and contribute their quota toward enhancing the productivity of students of Government Science College, Kutigi.
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