It is not surprising that some patriotic lawmakers irked by the sorry state of medical facilities in the country by both public and private hospitals introduced a bill seeking to curtail access of public officials to foreign treatment, sometimes for common ailments. A 2016 report by Price, Waterhouse, Coopers indicates that Nigeria loses about one billion United States dollars annually to medical tourism. Another survey indicates in similar manner that about $21 billion was spent on treatment abroad between 2011 and 2021, but the Lagos University Teaching Hospital puts the figure at $2.1 billion annually. This is at best a conservative figure given the proclivity of the elite to seek evaluation by foreign experts, especially in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany and India, for even diseases that could be treated locally. They have often attributed this to poor diagnostic equipment as well as inadequate specialists.
In a bid to curtail the capital flight from Nigeria that is cash-strapped, the House of Representatives is attempting to come up with a law that would ban public officials from travelling abroad for treatment. While some of them are proposing a total ban as a means of ensuring that the local public facilities are upgraded, others think it should be moderated to ensuring that public fund is not deployed for such fancy treatment. As such, the latter think certain conditions should be included for a public official to travel out when local expertise and equipment cannot cope with such treatment. These are loopholes that Nigerians are known to have abused in the past.
We agree that the proposal is an indication that the lawmakers mean well, but it may not work as presented. The punishment of seven years jail or N500 million fine is too draconian, especially if the officials had to be flown abroad in emergencies. Besides, the definition of public officer in the 1999 Constitution would include certain judicial officers at the federal and state levels. If the intendment of the law is to compel members of the executive, and probably the legislative arms of government who have the charge of improving public health facilities to pay adequate attention to them, how does this apply to judges who are only charged with adjudication of disputes and interpretation of the laws?
At the moment, it might be unfair to abruptly prevent people who might have been consulting foreign doctors for their health concerns before coming into office from doing so. Such doctors already have their medical history and are conversant with the state of their bodies; what we can do for now is stop the approval of public funds for all categories of public officers to treat themselves abroad. What is available at home should be adequate for them if they cannot privately source the fund.
Besides, there are poor people who are referred abroad for expert treatment by hospitals in Nigeria. Many such people go to hospitals in Egypt, South Africa and India for diseases in such areas as cardiology, oncology, orthopaedics and nephrology. For such patients, it is a matter of life and death, and it is common these days to see relations turning to media organisations to solicit funds from well-meaning Nigerians. This is the more reason why something must be done urgently to improve the state of healthcare delivery in Nigeria. It is a shame that while we need so many specialists to attend to people’s needs, our doctors are fleeing abroad daily to provide such services there. There have been reports of Nigerians referred to hospitals in developed countries only to be treated by highly recommended Nigerian specialists. The government should urgently come up with policies that would address this ugly trend in the interest of the people.
The authorities at the federal and state ministries of health should sit up to plug the holes in the administration of the system. Whatever it takes to halt the drift of health professionals abroad and the groaning of the people should be done. It is a shame that no serious policy to upgrade the system has been introduced since the return to civil rule in 1999. It is a direct challenge to the people, the electorate, to ensure that only men and women of ideas are elected in 2023. We have been adrift for so long that the people must wake up to keep their leaders on their toes, even after election.
It is on record that a minister, himself a medical doctor and former director in the Federal Ministry of Health, said he saw nothing wrong in Nigerian doctors and nurses taking up appointments in other countries, choosing to rather see it as endorsement of the quality of men trained locally. He did not even consider the heavily subsidised cost of training of medical specialists in the country.
The House bill is a rude awakening, an audacious wake-up call for the political elite and Nigerians to face the emergency of healthcare in the country. It is tug at our egalitarian impulse for Medicare. It should stir debate and trigger funding for a revolutionary approach for the domestication of good healthcare for our citizens as 2023 is around the corner.