#TheCaseOfMrPresident!

OUTBOUND MEDICAL TOURISM; THE BANE OF NIGERIAN HEALTH SECTOR! (III)
Thursday, 23rd February, 2017

Recently a US based Nigerian surgeon Dr Oluyinka Olutoye in company of a co-surgeon carried out an intricate surgical operation on a foetus successfully. The baby, named Lynlee Hope, developed a tumour known as Sacrococcygeal Teratoma, while in the womb. The foetus was 23 weeks (5months and 3 weeks) old in the womb when this rarity was performed.

The surgery involved removing the foetus from the womb, operating on it so as to remove the tumour and returning it to the womb. After the surgery, the baby became normal and maintained a healthy growth until she was delivered at the 9th month! This has never happened before, in the history of man and that of medicine. The baby is now developing healthily, enjoying her life. I think, this is another wonder of the world. Hence the doctor deserves a Nobel prize!

This wonder surgery attests to the fantastic and amazing accomplishments of Nigerian doctors in diaspora. If you can refer to article 1 on this topic, you will see where I stated the number of medical professionals of Nigeria extraction in the UK and US. For your sake who might have missed that edition, let me restate it. It is on records that there are about three thousand Nigerian-trained medical professionals in the UK and about five thousand of them in the US. This is not to mention other nations like Saudi Arabia.

Why then is our health sector so backward and behindhand when we have such capacities scattered all over the world? The billions of dollars we waste on medical tourism are more than enough to galvanise those professionals, provide modern facilities and make the environment enabling. Why are we wasting tax payers money on such unpopular trips embarrassing the world at the same time, when so many Nigerians are dying of preventable diseases and other health conditions? This is simply being penny wise pound foolish!

Can you see how much Nigerian professionals are contributing to the GDP of other nations the world over? An Igbo adage says "If you can't moisten your lips, the harmattan will moisten it for you". We failed to harness these rare talents. Hence other nations who saw what we couldn't see poached them away.

Our leaders cannot feign ignorant of the grand and stupendous exploits of our citizens in diaspora. According to Punch newspaper report, The Senior Special Assistant to the President Muhammadu Buhari on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa disclosed "that Buhari received the news of Dr Olutoye’s feat with excitement and fulfilment and was looking forward to meeting him." They are inexcusable!!!!

Nigerians in diaspora are huge potentials making tremendous positive impacts in all fields of human endeavour. It is therefore so obnoxiously paradoxical and ingloriously ironical that our own sectors are nothing to write home about. They tend to define us as people without direction. So pathetic! While those folks are there crafting an enviable image for us, our leaders out of ineptitude and incompetence are bastardising the image!!

Please tell them to take a step in the right direction and stop wasting our resources! We have what they are looking for overseas. After all, wetin dey for Sokoto, it dey for Shokoto!

Wishing Mr President quick recovery!!

LEADERSHIP TROUBLESHOOTING!
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