Monday 21 April 2014

Nigeria To Check Outbound Medical Tourism

THE NIGERIAN government and the national medical association have joined forces in a direct attack against outbound medical tourism.
The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has applauded the new National Health Act, as it will help to substantially reverse the trend of frequent and sometimes unnecessary foreign medical trips, and could even make Nigeria a destination for medical tourism.
The new law has provisions that directly tackle outbound medical tourism and the resultant negative impact for Nigeria with substantial sums flowing out of the country. It seeks to stop the use of tax payers’ money where politicians, government officials and their families go free on foreign medical trips, for medical conditions that can effectively be treated in Nigeria.
Dr Osahon Enabulele of NMA explains, “Lots of Nigerians, including top political office holders travel frequently to other countries in search of medical care even for medical conditions that can be satisfactorily managed in Nigeria. Available evidence suggests that over 5,000 Nigerians visit India and other countries every month for medical tourism with lots of these Nigerians faced with various risks and challenges including misdiagnosis, legal and ethical issues, exposure to infectious diseases, as well as other complications, particularly post-surgical complications. On average, over $800 million dollars is lost annually by Nigeria on account of foreign medical trips.”
The new law provides a minimum package of basic healthcare services (including the provision of free medical care for children under 5 years of age, pregnant mothers, the elderly and people with disabilities), as well as improved funding for primary health care through the setting up of a National Primary Healthcare Development Fund to be mostly funded by national taxes. The aim is to offer Nigerians greatly improved access to quality healthcare services, so that deaths amongst Nigerians, particularly the rural poor, as a result of inability to pay for healthcare services (including medical care for emergencies) are drastically reduced.
Minister of State for Health, Dr Khaliru Alhassan is an opponent of medical tourism and seeks to get the Federal Ministry of Health to improve healthcare in the country: “There has been a lot of accusing fingers towards us that federal politicians are responsible for medical tourism. The Federal Government of Nigeria is losing billions of dollars because of us; a lot of people are looking at us that we are responsible for people going out of the country. I have a lot of work to do to change this perception.”
Although politicians have attacked medical tourism in recent years, many were at the same time benefiting from free state paid medical care outside of Nigeria. The difference now is that those wanting change have a new law and renewed vigour to tackle the problem, which will be good news for many Nigerians but bad news for a struggling Indian medical tourism sector.
The federal government now has a clear mandate to ensure that Nigerians are healthy by working with the states, local government and the private sector to deliver the promise of transforming Nigeria’s healthcare as laid down by the National Health Development Strategic Plan; and the cabinet has warned national and local politicians that it will come down heavily on anybody causing problems by setting one ministry against another, or otherwise allowing local politics to delay the national plan.
(source:http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/)

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