As Nigerians is looking forward for Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) resumption, medical experts in Abuja have said the strike has worsened health services and increased foreign medical trips in the country.
A Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon with Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Birmingham in the United Kingdom, Dr. Segun Abudu stated that medical tourism and foreign trips for health purposes remained on the increase as the strike impacts negatively on medical training.
Speaking at the first edition of Joint Pain School in Abuja organised by Lagoon Hospital, Lagos, he said the situation started deteriorating in Nigeria about 20 years ago due to the absence of regular training and disruptions in academic calendar due to incessant strikes by university lecturers.
Abudu explained that medical tourism could deplete the finances of any nation while at the same time placing professionals at a disadvantaged position before their colleagues abroad.
Abudu maintained that “Medical tourism is the worst thing that can happen to any nation because it depletes the finances of a country and the experience of the professionals become lower.”
“In the last 20 years, medical tourism has grown on the worst terrain in Nigeria. There is loss of confidence because there is no regular training of professionals. But in Lagoon Hospital, we have invested heavily in the best services for the last four years,” he observed.
“There is also disruptions in school curricular due to incessant strikes by ASUU. But in Lagoon Hospital, we don’t go on strike. We are committed to fighting medical tourism because it is killing. Nobody can fight it for the country except Nigerians,” he added.
Abudu, a visiting consultant to Lagoon Hospital Group, informed journalists that through the JPS, there would be a drastic reduction in the number of Nigerians living with joint pains, through the provision of efficient services by the group.
“It is to create awareness for people who have one pain or the other. We want to find ways of improving the health care of Nigerians. I was engaged to help in upgrading health care for patients in Nigeria. We are committed to updating and educating professionals and patients themselves for them to know what is available and what they should do whenever there is pains. 80 percent of people suffer pains in their life time.”
In his remarks, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Lagoon Hospital, Dr. Oji Michael said: “We believe in the philosophy that our patients would have their fate determined by themselves and we also want to discourage medical tourism in Nigeria.”
Source: Thisday
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