Omoragbon
made the plea during an exclusive interview with Lagos Talks 91.3 FM on Monday, May 15, 2023.
He
maintained that with such facility the issue of medical tourism would be a
thing of the past. “Now, is anything wrong if we should have one standard
international hospital in every geopolitical zone in Nigeria, so that these
hospitals, the standard can be comparable to what is obtainable in the UK or
United States of America? It is very possible. If you go to the Middle-east
none of the elites in the Middle-east leaves their countries to go for
treatment abroad even in the United Kingdom or America, why because their
facilities are second to none. In fact
their facilities are even better than what is available in Europe or America,
because they invest in such facilities. If our leaders can do it that would be
great.”
Speaking on
the inability of the President Muhammadu Buhari to treat his tooth arch in
Nigeria, Omoragbon said that it is a very big indictment on the country that
the president of Nigeria could not be treated in Nigeria for ordinary tooth
arch. “As a medical professional who was trained in Nigeria, worked in Nigeria
and retired in Nigeria, I feel so embarrassed and I feel so scandalized as a
Nigerian that this is happening.” He asked the question, is it that it is not
possible to have such services in Nigeria? He answered that it is very
possible.
Omoragbon
put the inability of the president to get adequate medical treatment in Nigeria
to the unwillingness of the politicians to do the right thing. “It has nothing
to do with the healthcare practitioners, the healthcare practitioners are there
as employees, they can only function with the resources that are available for
them to work with, and those resources are provided by those in government. So
it shows non-commitment of our leaders to our healthcare delivery services
because if they were committed, these structures, the facilities required would
have been made available. The reason why they are not committed is because they
have access to the kind of money that you and I do not have and they can afford
to travel anywhere in the world to seek medical treatment. That is why they are
not bordered.”
He spoke
further, “In 2020 during the Covid pandemic, the Prime Minister of United
kingdom, Boris Johnson was infected by covid, in fact he almost died, Boris
Johnson was admitted in one of the NHA, NHA hospitals are government hospitals.
Now Boris Johnson was treated by the same nurse, the same doctors that would
have attend to me if I were to attend that hospital. That was an example. Now
when Yar’Adua was sick he was flown abroad, unfortunately we lost him. You are
also aware that our current President, Muhammadu Buhari is also here for his
tooth arch. Last year, Professor Osinbajo was admitted in one of the private
hospitals in Nigeria, he was treated and discharged, and he got home, meaning
that Osinbajo could have also travelled outside the country for treatment. But
one fact remains, which is if Osinbajo could be treated in a private facility
in Nigeria, it shows that the kind of treatment Osinbajo had in Nigeria is
commensurate with what is obtainable abroad.
On solutions
to the current healthcare quagmire in the nation he suggested the outright ban
on medical tourism by government officials, saying “The solution is very clear,
if you look at the example I gave before with Boris Johnson being treated in an
NHS, a government hospital, if Boris Johnson was to have gone to a private
hospital; that would have been a big indictment on his position as the head of
government in United Kingdom, it would mean you are not prepared to receive
treatment in the same hospital the ordinary man receives treatment because the
ordinary man voted you there; so the fact that he went there for treatment
demonstrates the fact that he has confidence in the services that are being
rendered, which means, because he knows that if any of his family members were
to be sick tomorrow, he or she will have to be taken there, so what do they have
to do? They make sure that the facilities that are required for the nurses, for
the doctors, for the lab technicians to function have to be up to date and have
to be available, because they will not have the luxury, while in service to go
to private hospitals.”
On what can
be done to ameliorate the situation, Omoragbon said the first thing to do is
for the government to get those who are in the Legislature to make laws banning
all public officers from going to any private hospital or travelling abroad for
treatment, because if such law is in place, they would have no choice but to
equip hospitals with the necessary equipment and instruments for the hospital
to work with, and they would no longer pay lip service to the number of doctors
and nurses that are being trained.
He said “If
the government were sincere let the government revert to the earlier days
whereby government train doctors and nurses, they were given scholarship for
training, today our medical personnel have to train themselves, if you are interested
in nursing you have to pay millions of Naira, ditto for doctors, but a country
as rich as Nigeria can afford to train its healthcare personnel free of charge,
and give them enough incentives so that people will be interested in the
profession. If you train these people and put them on what is called bond and
you tell them, okay, I am going to train you, and for 3, 4, 5 years you are not
going anywhere, we would have enough, but today, the little number of
healthcare workers that are being trained, they train themselves, after that,
they have to go to places where there service are better appreciated and their
welfare is better taken care of in terms of salary. The reason why you work is
to take care of your family and all that,” Omoragbon emphasized.
He
maintained that the training which the medical personnel in Nigeria receive is
equivalent to what is obtainable abroad which is the reason other countries
seek the services of the Nigerian healthcare professionals.
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