The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has proposed the adoption of public-private partnership in the health sector to enhance sustainability and efficiency in order to reverse medical tourism in favour of the country.
This was proposed during a medical expo held by the NMA on Thursday to find ways of strengthening Nigeria’s private health sector to be a key player in the global health industry and thereby reverse medical tourism in favour of Nigeria.
The NMA President, Prof. Bala Audu during his welcome address explained that the situation is predicted to get worse unless an intervention is done as a nation.
He noted that while the global market for medical tourism is expected to reach 180bn USD by 2030, Nigeria contributes as an exporter of patients with an annual flight of capital of over 2 billion USD to medical tourism.
According to Audu, the conversation is geared towards provision of national policy that is backed by fiscal policies in order to unleash the potential of the private and public-private partnership that will strategically place in Nigeria at par with the most competitive destinations of medical tourism in addition to strengthening international best practices.
Speaking on current challenges faced by the association, Audu mentioned burnout due to excess workload. He explained the small number of healthcare professional remaining in the country try their best to ensure that they deliver the same quality of healthcare that is being provided abroad thereby overworking themselves.
The Lagos state commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi at the expo explained that it is important that governments play their role to ensure that the healthcare space is one that is protected to accommodate private investment.
First Vice President, NMA, Dr Benjamin Olowojebutu in an interview enumerated the importance of reversing medical tourism in the country which he said the association has to be at the fore front of it in order to give opportunities for people to know the country’s healthcare indices, healthcare experts and health care services available.
Olowojebutu who is also the Chairman, Local Organising Committee of the Expo assured that partnership with private equity, private institutions would greatly contribute to fix the problem.
“We have a hospital that does 16 kidney transplants every month. We have a hospital that can do a cardiovascular surgery in a few hours. We have a hospital coming from Niger, from Mali, to see what we do,” he added.
