NMA president charges medical professionals abroad to invest more in country’s healthcare industry

THE president of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Osahon Enabulele, has called on Nigerian medical professionals abroad to invest more in Nigeria’s healthcare industry in order to redress the phenomenon of medical tourism and poor state of Nigeria’s healthcare system.

Enabulele stated this while speaking on “Investment in healthcare in Nigeria-the role of medical association of Nigerians Across Great Britain (MANSAG) and NMA,” at the 23rd Annual Scientific Conference of the MANSAG that held at Westwood Hall Conference Centre and Hotel, Leeds, United Kingdom from October 20 to 29.

Enabulele while commending the leadership of MANSAG for organising the conference, recalled the historical evolution of Nigeria’s healthcare industry and regretted that despite efforts by Nigeria’s current ministers of health to improve Nigeria’s healthcare system, Nigeria’s health status indicators were still largely unsatisfactory.

This, Enabulele attributed to years of cumulative insults to Nigeria’s healthcare system as a result of poor commitment to the health of Nigerians by the country’s political leaders coupled with their frequent visits abroad for medical care, political instability and policy inconsistency, poor constitutional and legal framework for health, poor government support for the private sector, pervasive quackery and lack of adherence to international best practices and professionalism in the health sector, poor health human resource development and motivation, cancerous levels of corruption and systemic infrastructural decay.

Enabulele emphasized that the poor development of other health-impacting social sectors like education, roads/transportation system, power, housing and water, had done incalculable harm to the health of Nigerians, stating firmly that health status indicators and performance are determined not only by the services delivered in the hospitals but majorly by occurrences at pre-service levels.

To reverse Nigeria’s poor health situation, Enabulele declared that Nigerians (home and abroad) had all it takes to solve Nigeria’s healthcare challenges if the enabling environment and international best practices, as well as good governance and transparent commitment is shown by governments at all levels.

He, therefore, called on Nigerian Medical Professionals to stop lamenting or agonising about the poor state of Nigerian’s health, but to move from the realm of idealism into the realm of realism by joining forces with their colleagues in Nigeria to strategically re-organise the healthcare system through significant investments in health human resource, health infrastructure, health institutions and systems/service delivery and health-impacting social sectors.

Enabulele went on to highlight various areas in which Nigerian Medical Professionals under the aegis of MANSAG could partner with the NMA in the determined quest of the current leadership of NMA to make substantial contributions to the revitalisation of Nigeria’s healthcare system.

Enabulele expressed the hope that through this partnership many of Nigeria’s medical professionals in the diaspora can gradually return home to join forces with their colleagues and compatriots in Nigeria who are daily toiling hard to keep Nigeria’s healthcare system alive in spite of the extremely suffocating and challenging circumstances.

Other speakers at the conference included Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, the President of MANSAG, Dr. Dilly Anumba, amongst others.

......CHUKWUMA MUANYA (LAGOS); EMEKA ANUFORO (ABUJA)/THE GUARDIAN NIGERIA