Nigeria Makes Strong Move To Stall Medical Tourism in 2022
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The Federal Government of Nigeria announced this on Wednesday.
The Federal Ministry of Health has announced that Nigeria will be improving its health infrastructure.
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Health, Mahmuda Mamman, confirmed this during an inspection in Maiduguri.
Mamman who led other officials to tour the cancer centre at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital said the facility leads modern medicine in Nigeria.
The officials were on the ground to inspect the facility on this basis:
The UMTH facility is a newly-built ultra-modern cancer centre in Nigeria.
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He lauded the state-of-the-art facility created by the present administration.
The permanent secretary listed the following subsections as laudable. They are:
i. The trauma centre.
ii. New cancer and kidney centres.
iii. Available manpower.
Mamman named the facility as one that would change the face of health services in North-east Nigeria.
He said the goal is to reduce medical tourism outside the country.
His words:
“The UMTH cancer centre is one of the best.
“It is coming up as a new centre that is beating the trend of those that already exist in the country.
“Along with the kidney centre, when they are finally completed and put into use, they will reduce medical tourism by Nigerians to other countries.
“When we have Nigerians going abroad to meet Nigerians treating them, why can’t they stay here in Nigeria and treat Nigerians.”
The Chief Medical Director, Prof Ahmad Ahidjo, also dropped some positive comments.
He noted that the cancer centre there would be the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa when completed.
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Prof Ahidjo revealed that the centre alone has absorbed 5 billion nairas in infrastructure.
His words:
“So far, we have spent over five billion nairas to build the cancer centre and the cancer treatment facilities.
“The biggest cancer centre in Nigeria as of today is at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. It was built at the cost of N12bn naira, but the one we are building will be the biggest and it will be able to treat cancer patients from every part of the world.
“We have also invested N50m donated by the state government as a research grant to the hospital to enable us to conduct research in kidney diseases that are prevalent in the Northeast”
Source: PUNCH Health Wise
