It is not going to be business as usual for health professionals engaged in the practice of referring patients for treatment abroad if latest signals from the Federal government are anything to go by.
Good Health Weekly gathered that the habit of recommending overseas medical treatment for all kinds of ailments, particularly those that can be adequately treated in the country, will no longer be tolerated.
The Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, who brought this development to the fore in Lagos recently said medical tourism has become a racket among health professionals in Nigeria.
Adewole, who spoke during a breakfast meeting entitled: "Unlocking the Potentials of the Private Healthcare Sector" with members of Healthcare Federation of Nigeria, HFN, comprising Chief Executive Officers and other stakeholders in the health sector, said the trend was not a good one for Nigeria.
The Minister said: "I sat down as a minister and the first thing I kept getting were these requests from people who wanted to travel out of the country, and to me it is like a racket.
"It is framed at N9 million to N11 million, not N1 million or N2 million. I look at some of these requests and say something must be wrong somewhere. Some of the referrals were written by senior registrars on behalf of consultants. Later, I got to know that when you send four cases to India, you are paid for the 5th one, so it is a racket and we must stop it.
"Thereafter, I said I would only approve a referral if it is written by a Consultant and endorsed by Chief Medical Director, that 'there is no facility to handle it in the country.'
Credit: AllAfrica