COVID-19: Why Nigeria must halve over $1bn medical tourism

International health travel must not be confused with having an unplanned surgery in a foreign country due to an unexpected illness or injury.

International health travel as medical tourism means intentionally going to another country for medical care. In all its definitions, it can be agreed that medical tourism occurs when one travels outside his/ her place of residence in search of health or medical care for whatever reason.

It could either be inter-state in a country or from one country to another. In recent times, medical tourism has been considered as a worldwide multibillion-dollar phenomenon that is expected to grow considerably in the next decade.

Be it for general well- being, cosmetic surgery or life-saving procedures, people are expected to traverse from developing countries to developed countries to access health care mainly driven by various factors such as affordability, easy access, quality and sometimes just a simple getaway.

Patients from these developed countries such as United States, United Kingdom and Europe who seek health care in less developed countries such as India and China are more interested in low cost healthcare and no waiting period.

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As it has been widely reported, the cost of healthcare in the US is the most evident key factor that encourages US citizens to seek health care outside the country.

This has inevitably proven that medical tourism is the norm for cutting and lowering costs which has continued to excessively soar. In this part of the world, Nigeria, the case is different.

A multitude of reasons conspire to push patients out of the country for health care. Nigerian authorities have stated that the country is losing more than $1 billion annually to medical tourism as tens of thousands of Nigerians travel abroad in search of the best treatment.

Whether it is cost (financial and non-financial), access (physical and skilled workforce) to quality of care, there is an unspoken increasing preference to travel overseas for health care at the slightest opportunity or just for the pleasure of it.

Many Nigerians are known to have a GP abroad who tends to their every need, even to a negligible cough. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, a friend had informed me of his travel plans, solely for his annual medical check-up.

Another friend also stated that after he was diagnosed of hernia and was scheduled for surgery in Nigeria, he opted to fly out to see his GP for a second opinion.

These and many more are clear reasons that attribute to the loss of over $1billion in medical tourism in Nigeria; while International Medical Travel Journal and Global Medical Travel and Tourism estimates that inbound medical tourism generates a whopping $3.5 billion of revenue for the USA.

During the recent commissioning of a Federal Medical Center in the Northern part of Nigeria, the Medical Director identified the following as common challenges faced in running the facility – ‘lack of an Xray machine, scarcity of potable water, shortage of consultants and indiscipline amongst staff’. I dare to say that these challenges can be ameliorated.

Although it has been argued that in a perfect world, people should need not travel in search of medical care, either

way, both antagonists and protagonists of medical tourism can agree that the international health travel is a thing of choice and people should not be forced into making those choices.

It is worthy to note that a major factor responsible to this choice is the ease of travel. Our increasingly globalized world has made international travel faster, cheaper, and more accessible.

Even though the financial implication to travel abroad is a bit high priced, families and friends usually rally round the patients to offset cost of procedures in foreign lands.

Some people who can afford the travels may even see it as a tourism opportunity to explore the foreign lands and recuperate after their procedure – using one airline ticket to kill two birds.

COVID-19 has devastatingly affected several medical travel destinations, making countries to look inward in correcting the deficiencies that promote undue seeking of medical treatments abroad and thus reducing the high number of billions lost annually over the past decades.

Since the lockdown and travel restrictions, Nigerians at home have been forced to patronize the health sector in its present condition. With the light beamed on the industry, health care professionals have had to standup to the challenge in their different capacities.

While we hear stories of people visiting hospitals in the country for the same reasons they would have travelled abroad – cosmetic surgery, brain surgery, broken arms, sprained ankles, heart attacks and other medical emergencies, there is no available data to compare the country’s health indices in the past five months before the lockdown and travel restrictions.

However, the industry recorded some technological advancements especially around Telehealth, knowledge sharing through remote medical applications with other health experts outside the country and digital subscription for health insurance.

Affordability also influences the decision to travel abroad mostly for those travelling from developed to less developed or developing countries. Health care is cheaper in developing countries. However, due to the poverty rate, this affordability can be said to be relative.

Dynamic initiatives to offer health insurance even at the lowest level of the social strata including public health programs that support detection of diseases at the early stages to prevent huge financial loses when treating complicated cases is key.

When trying to save lives, families have had to go to any extent selling their lands to seek care abroad. The richer social class are forced to spend significant amount of their life savings. Paying huge sums of money has no direct correlation with quality of care.

Health insurance helps to provide the affordability within the community. It is reported that the primary reason that clinics and hospitals in the developing countries can lower their prices is directly related to the nation’s economic status.

Explaining further, the direct correlation with per capita gross domestic product of the country is observed, which is a proxy for income levels. Consequently, surgery prices are from 30% to 70% lower in developing countries when compared to the US.

Globally it was a manufacturing economy before now; in present times it is a service, information, and creative economy.

Daily, we are confronted with new and possible ideas to help drive the health sector. Some of the ideas are coming from other sectors and will need a platform for collaboration.

We need leadership with broad functional orientation to promote inter-sectoral collaboration, explore opportunities, make other sectors real partners and stakeholders to drive the flow of revenue and resources and bridge infrastructure gap.

Partnerships are crucial for sector growth especially in a technology advanced world as we are today, of which the health sector yearns greatly for it.