NMA proposes PPP to reverse medical tourism in Nigeria

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 association yesterday to find ways of strengthening Nigeria’s private health sector to be a key player in the global health industry and thereby reversing 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 180B USD by 2030, Nigeria contributes as an exporter of patients with an annual flight of capital of over 2B USD to medical tourism.

According to Audu, the conversation is geared towards the provision of a 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 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 that the small number of healthcare professionals 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 forefront of in order to give opportunities for people to know the country’s healthcare indices, healthcare experts, and healthcare services available.

Olowojebutu, who is also the Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee of the Expo, assured that partnership with private equity and private institutions would greatly contribute to fixing the problem.

“We have a hospital that does 16 kidney transplants every month. We have a hospital that can carry out cardiovascular surgery in a few hours. We have hospitals coming from Niger, from Mali, to see what we do,” he added.