I found this article @ Thisdayonline.com, and decided to share.

By Patrick Ugeh



The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, Thursday disclosed how foreign hospitals rip off wealthy Nigerians seeking medical attention in India and other parts of the world by giving them unnecessary treatments just to make them part with more money. One of such devices he identified is pace-maker which he said was given to rich people

According to him, there were at least seven federal hospitals, including the latest, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, that could perform kidney transplant, while University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, has resumed open heart surgery, two of the ailments for which patients go overseas for treatment.

Supporting his principal, Minister of State, Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate, revealed that arrangements were in top gear to build a health mall in Abuja that would provide most of the services for which Nigerians go outside the country’s shores.

Both ministers spoke Thursday in Abuja at the 2013 Ministerial Platform.

Pate explained that the health mall, which would be driven by private partners, would be steered by the likes of Aliko Dangote and other top business executives, pointing out that the foreign hospitals attended by Nigerians were owned by the private sector.

According to him, the project would take off as soon as the Federal Capital Territory Administration completes its part of the arrangement.

“Medical tourism is here,” he admitted, saying: “When our people go to India, they go to private health facilities. We are trying to get Nigerians in the Diaspora to come with their talent to develop this place.”

Chukwu on his part said as it is, the only time when Nigerians could go for medical care abroad was when the facilities and equipment were not available here, noting that there was no country that is self-sufficient in providing health care for its people.

“As far as health care is concerned, there is no country in the world that has everything,” he declared, adding that: “Less than one per cent of Nigerians actually have the need to go abroad for treatment. For the majority, what they need is available in Nigeria... You don’t have to go abroad, but if you like to be swindled, it is up to you.”

The minister also announced that there was a strong law against smoking in the offing, saying those who did not like it should go out of Nigeria.

It is not clear who this is aimed at but one of Nigeria’s leading tobacco manufacturers, British American Tobacco, (BAT), has been complaining that the law might force the affected companies to close shop in Nigeria.

BAT said the effect would be that the country would lose the revenue got in taxes as people would resort to smuggling the product to satisfy the craving of smokers.

But Chukwu said: “One of the best ways of tackling health issues, especially as they relate to human health, is prevention, and one of the steps is by curtailing smoking.
There is a strong law against smoking that is coming. If you don’t like it, leave Nigeria.”

Supported by Pate, Chukwu said there were enough public and private hospitals in Nigeria to take care of over 99 per cent of the health care needs of the citizens, and that the one per cent that go abroad were mainly those who did so out of choice but not out of necessity.

He also acknowledged that there were unscrupulous elements within the health system who aided the foreign hospitals by unnecessary referrals.

The minister reiterated that the lasting solutions to the country’s health problems are the passage of the National Health Bill and making health insurance compulsory.

He stated that now that opposition to the bill had simmered down, he was optimistic that the draft legislation would soon see the light of day.

On the need to make health insurance compulsory, Chukwu said he did not see why it should not be when insuring inanimate objects like motor vehicles was. According to him, with the insurance in place, there would be no need to pay for the treatment of common ailments like malaria.

He also told Nigerians that paramedics would soon be formally trained and that accreditation would be given to a school for their formal education presently.

Similarly, the minister restated that herbal medicine practitioners must go to school to be formally integrated into the health care delivery system.

He also announced that illegal drug markets in Onitsha and other parts of the country would soon be shut and replaced with alternative sources of drug distribution.

Good idea, but we know 9ja na

90% of those that go to foreign hospitals are politicians. These people don't believe in anything Nigeria. They send their children to school abroad, they establish their investment abroad. They bank abroad, they imported their jewelry from abroad and other goods from foreign, buy houses abroad, when they hv fever they go to hospital abroad. The only thing they will like to do in Nigeria is when they die they will like to b buried in Nigeria. I don't knw if Nigeria is cemetary.