While most Nigerians prefer to access healthcare in advanced countries, making the country lose billions of dollars yearly on medical tourism, the Ibom Specialty Hospital in Akwa Ibom State hopes to reverse the trend. Martins Ifijeh writes

When the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) declared in a report that in October 2015, its Medical Tourism sector was estimated to be worth US $3 billion and projected to grow to $7–8 billion by 2020, it did not mention in the report that Nigeria alone contributed about US $1 billion to that 2015 medical tourism income.

This is as the Nigerian medical tourism indices showed that outside India, many Nigerians also access medical treatment in Europe and the United States, thereby spending several millions of dollars annually on healthcare in foreign countries, an action stakeholders say boosts the economy of such countries at the detriment of Nigeria’s.

But in order to change the narrative, the then administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and that of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan declared their intentions to revitalise the healthcare system such that government officials and Nigerians would not have reasons to travel abroad for healthcare.

But the more they reiterated the declaration, the more Nigerians access healthcare abroad, as there exist no adequate world class healthcare system and standard facilities.

In fact, the Indian High Commission in Nigeria says of the over 40,000 Nigerians that got visas to its country in 2015, more than 20,000 obtained their visas for medical reasons; a sharp increase from what used to obtain years ago despite various declarations by previous administrations to curb medical tourism in Nigeria.

Also, the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari early last year made the same declaration, which so far has not been met with action. Even more surprising is that the President of the country, according to some school of thoughts has no faith in the country’s healthcare, as he is presently receiving treatment in the United Kingdom. He has been in the foreign land for over 40 days now.

While health experts, stakeholders and Nigerians across the country consider his action as not good for the healthcare sector, other Nigerians who prefer to access healthcare outside the country do not feel ashamed. All they want is a place where they can be treated with a global standard.

But the Ibom Specialist Hospital in Akwa Ibom State is changing the narrative and coming to the rescue to stopping medical tourism in the country; combining primary, secondary and tertiary treatments with a model only seen in world’s most luxurious health facilities like the famous RAK Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles, the Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore, among other few, which most rich Nigerians like to patronise.

“With the level of facilities and expertise we have in this multi specialty centre, we would have been able to treat the President if consulted or asked to offer such service, just same way other world class health facilities will treat him,” the Chief Medical Officer of the hospital, Dr. Adewale Adekanye has said during a media tour of the facility recently.

He said the specialist hospital was specifically designed to stop medical tourism in Nigeria by offering expertise in cardiology, oncology, plastic surgery, internal medicine, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, among others, through an approach designed to be above what the best tertiary health facility in Nigeria offers.

“But the problem is that the hospital is still fairly new and majority of Nigerians are not yet aware that instead of going abroad to treat cases like kidney disease, heart disease, cancer, organ transplants, among others, they could save a lot of travel money and other expenses by getting same globally acclaimed standard treatment in Ibom Specialist Hospital.

“While most of our equipments are first in not just Nigeria, but in Africa, the ambience, the five star rooms and other facilities are designed to provide first class treatment in a five-star hotel like manner to its patients, a treat that can only be seen in few world class hospitals.

“The hospital, which is equipped with 640 slides CT scan, digital mammography, endoscopy surgery, highly sophisticated intensive care units and medical gas plants, is sitting on a large landmass with paperless and fully automated laboratories. It also has a helipad to facilitate easy emergency movements to and from the hospital. The entire hospital system is also hooked up to a global system for best practice,” he said.

He explained that already, in its neurosurgery unit, complex surgeries involving cephalusis, a form of tumour in young children where they have extension of the skull, were successfully done. “The baby is alive and fine. We did that on a three-day-old baby. And that is just one among the several neurosurgeries that have been done. In neurosurgery, these are surgeries a typical Nigerian would want to go do in India or United States

“We have seen and treated successfully patients who broke their spine or neck, hip and back in accidents, as well. When the well publicised church building fell and killed some persons and injured many, we were equal to the task. It’s a capacity we have set out for from day one.

He said the hospital now get referrals from major tertiary hospitals in Nigeria, with the most recent being a referral from the National Hospital Abuja where a patient who needed brain surgery was referred to it.

But why was the pioneer of the facility, former Governor Godswill Akpabio flown abroad in 2015 when he was involved in an accident in Abuja if indeed the hospital could tackle serious health issues? Adekanye says at the time the incident happened, the hospital was not operational then.

“The hospital was inaugurated early in January 2015, but started operation in November 2015. It was between this time the incident happened. But since we started, both him, his family, and several government officials regularly patronise us,” he added.

According to the Executive Secretary of the hospital, Faith Akpokighe, while most of the personnel are world class foreign doctors and health workers, there are also Nigerian doctors who have excelled in their previous place of work. “Personnel here were carefully selected because of the professional standard we intend to maintain in our service to Nigerians. This can directly reverse medical tourism in Nigeria and in turn bring in people from other countries to access healthcare here.”

But while the specialist hospital is arguably one of the best in Africa, it comes with an array of challenges, as it is typical with government owned institutions where continuity of projects and passions are luxuries.

The hospital, which was pioneered by Senator Akpabio, was inaugurated during the winding phase of his second term as governor even though there were still other surgical units and structural facilities that were still not yet in place. It is believed he has completed over 80 per cent of the project, while it is expected that the present governor will go along with the passion, which was designed to be a medical tourist hub to the state.

However, since the inauguration, the remaining structural and other pending facilities needed to complete the vision 100 per cent are yet not in place, even though it is a state government hospital.

As at the time THISDAY visited, the facility runs on 24 hours alternate power supply as it is not yet connected to the power grid, thereby using up more expenses for the hospital.

-THISDAY-

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