By Tunde Abatan
tunde2013abatan@gmail.com 08165660217
As politicians are busy criss- crossing the country sensitizing the citizens about their future ambition in 2023 in their respective political parties ,it is also necessary to remind our citizens of the sorry state of our health institutions which produced most if not all of those now gallivanting round the clock.
Urgent solution to our national health crisis is one of the critical areas they must demand commitment of the political merchants when they eventually mount the soap box.
It is also necessary to raise the issue such that when they get to office in 2023, (ironicaly,some of the aspirants already manifest serious signs of ailment) they will at least try to fix the health challenges facing the nation and reduce the medical tourism which the political,business and social elite has plunged the country in the past ten years at least.
As in other sectors of national life, Nigerias health sector is in serious crisis.
Crisis caused not by lack of ideas or require qualified human resources and personnel to arrest the situation and to to turn it arround (we have most of the best of our qualified professionals working in reputable institution round the globe) but by self imposed crisis encouraged by lack of commitment to a serious national cause and lack of appropriate funding to arrest the ugly and embarrassing situation.
Embarrassing, because while the nations health sector is in serious crisis of under funding, the elite according to Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority,NSIA which calls the shot in national policy formulation and implementation, spends an average of $1billion dollars every year since 2011 on medical tourism.
This figure translates to $11billion medical services abroad in ten years to take care of their health challenges for ailment that could be successfully be treated here by our own well trained medical personnel in our health institutions.
Orogbo used for the eye drop
It is also ridiculous that a paltry N820 billion is allocated for health budget in 2022 which represents five percent of the N16.39 trillion national budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari, who himself have spent more time and resources on medical tourism than all previous government in the country with the exception of late President Umaru Yaradua.
Yet,they never bother to do anything about the state of health care delivery both infrastructure and incentive for medical personnel at home.
It is on record that the nations Premiere University,the University of Ibadan in the 60s and 70s played host to numerous dignitaries from arround the middle east and other African countries to attend to their health challenges.Today,the institution is a shadow of it’s glorious past as neglect has taken over structure and personnel.
Needless to say that today,our health institutions are in a sorry state of neglect not only in infrastructure and funding but also in brain drain as our experts trained at public expense have all migrated out by the brain drain phrnomenom.
Such is the depletion in our health care experts that as at 2020,Nigeria had a doctor to patient ratio of 1:2753 in sharp contrast to the World Health Organisations minimum of 1:400 or 600.
The Medical and Dental Consultant Association of Nigeria said more than 100 of it’s members left the country in the past 24 months.
In this regard,Dr Victor Makanjuola,the President of the Association said the mass exodus of medical and dental consultants has brought significant disruptions to Nigerias health care ecosystem.
Indeed,since April 2019 and as we write, 2000 doctors have left Nigeria over the past few years. The doctor blamed the mass exodus on poor working conditions as only four percent of Nigerias budget is allocated to health.
Compared to the United States from where we copied our present political and governance structure,annual health care allocated per person is $10,000 whereas in Nigeria it is just a paltry $6 US dollars.
To make matters worst, stastistics have shown that more than half of those seeking visa to India are going for Medicare that is not available here in Nigeria , Onwufor Uche,consultant and Director of Gynae Care Research and Care Foundation in Abuja told Aljazeera.
He asserted that to compound the human capital situation,” the monthly remuneration of doctors in Nigeria has continued to decline against other countries.While the take home monthly pay of a Nigerian doctor is N200,000($560) and this has necessitated them moving to countries where they can be better paid.
It means that eight out of 10 Nigerians are presently receiving substandard or no medicare at all”
For now,Nigeria indigenes are at the mercy of dilapidated health infrastructure.
Perhaps this made the duo of Honourable Ibrahim Isiaka(Ogun) and Dr Sergius Ogun(Esan North and South)in the House of Representatives to sponsor a bill in the house to prescribe 7 years jail term or N500million or both for public officials who seek or make treatment abroad at public expense.
While their intervention could be reasonable to draw government attention to improve public sector funding,it is curious while they are doing this at the tail end of a regime whose leader have spent so much abroad at public expense than his predecessors.
Is it not more reasonable if our legislators have taken steps earlier to increase public health allocation and funding in previous budgets than the paltry sum allocated over the years.
Yes,it could also be argued that the Bill is only an amendment to the existing National Health Act 2014 and Related Matters.
But Professor Olubunkola Adebule- Ositelu,a retired dean and consultant Optamology,Lagos College of Medicine and Teaching Hospital believes that though late,the bill if passed into law is what is needed if attention must be focused by governments to arrest the Infrastructural and human capital decay in our health institutions.
Professor Adebule- Ositelu told Newdawnngr.com in an interview last week that if the bill is passed into law,”medical tourism will be discouraged and we will be able to develop our own health facilities.”
Medical tourism for her, is a wicked act which should be discouraged adding that no penalty is too much,” if we as a nation must develop.what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. ” She believes that If the national assembly members could pass the bill,medical tourism which will lead to development of our health institutions will reduce significantly among public officers and”their wickedness will stop”.
Besides,the professor of medicine who has put in over 50years before retirement argued that preventing medical tourism is also possible only if health professionals are encouraged with good incentives as obtained in the early 70 s and 80s.
It is to her credit that a local alternative was found recently to treatment of Glucoma,cattaract and other alied ailments which has taken many overseas.
Professor Ositelu demonstrated that her strident call for development of alternative medicine sourced locally is not about rhetorics as many years of research by her has made her lead the way in the discovery of alternative local treatment of Glucoma, Cattaract and other eye ailments.
‘Orogbo’-Garcina Kola, a local nut she got from our natural habitat has been developed into eye drops and after years of dilly dallying, has been accepted by both the World Health Organisations and Universities in Texas for treating the disease which has led to blindness in many.
Hence,Professor Adefule- Ositelu has successfully launched and patented Adefulenol, ‘Orogbo’ for the treatment of Glucoma and other related eye problems like Cataract and others. she has three other Eye drops developed for treating other related eye ailments.
Indeed,it is now avalaible in many Eye clinics in notable hospitals in the country and thus become one of several efforts that could prevent medical tourism in the country.
Yours faithfully is a living testimony ọf the use of Adefulenol drops madẹ of Orogbo in the treatment of Glucoma .This came after years of futile treatment with foreign drugs.
Indeed,Lagos state government has taken a step ahead of others states in the country by blaizing the trail in ‘abducting’ Adefule-Ositelu from retirement to chair the state Trado Medicine Association,a body set up to integrate and regulate traditional medicine with orthodox practice.
Perhaps efforts like this by conducting research in identifying local herbs could help in finding credible alternatives in efforts towards stemming our health challenges especially now that humongous foreign currency is being spent on medical tourism.
But like the learned Professor said,colonial mentality and our refusal to get liberated from western world could deter us from developing what we had as Madagascar took the bull by the horn did during the COVID-19 years. The country used her own local herb to treat the pandemic brushing aside WHO led western propaganda.
COVID -19 is a pandemic which WHO taught would decimated African population and give the Western world opportunity to recolonize us when in actual fact we have local alternatives.
Really,the narratives has to change and legislators like Isiaka and Ogun could make a difference by pushing the medical tourism legislation into the front burner of national discourse during this election year.
