What would you consider as the secret of your success so far?
Well, I don’t know whether its success yet, but it is the pathway to success. We know infertility is a big problem in Nigeria and so we can say that the demand is there whether we like it or not and the only thing we can do is to try to meet that demand. One of the things that made us to get out of our comfort zone in Lagos is actually the fact that we saw that patients were coming all the way from Asaba just to come and have a blood test done. A procedure that takes five minutes- bloodletting and someone travels the whole day just to come and do that. We did not think it was fair looking at the risk involved. Even then, there was no airport in Asaba. So most people have to come by road and we know what our roads are like. So that is one of the things that made us say okay, fine we need to go to Asaba and we went to Asaba and we saw that it seems to be working so the next point was to go to Abuja because we are a one stop fertility Centre. We not only offer In-Vitro fertilisation (IVF), but we also do endoscopy and surgical endoscopy for that matter which is at its infancy in Nigeria. We feel that we have something to offer to people that is why we are trying to establish the brand in other parts of Nigeria. But it is the demand that actually is driving us.
What would you consider as your greatest challenge in practice and in business?
I think it is the same. It is managing the human element. It is the greatest challenge to any entrepreneur. You need to be able to crack the code on human management for you to be able to succeed especially when you want to run a module like ours. Since a human being is limited to only one place, you need people that you can trust in other places where you want to do your business and this means you will not only have to train them but you will have to empower and trust them to be able to do stuff for you. Especially when you consider the fact that as a doctor, your background is medical where 2 + 2 is always 4 and to human beings 2 +2 is not always 4. So, that is the greatest challenge.
What is unique to Nordica Fertility Centre?
The first is the level of training of our staff and the services we render. We try to stay abreast of technology in the world so we can beat our chest and say this fertility center can as well be located in Germany and we would survive. We train our people to be friendly. We are not the typical medical practice, I am sorry to say that. I have also been involved in so many medical practices and I see that we don’t listen to our patients. We seem to know what the patient wants. That is why you see doctors saying, do you want to teach me my job. You know if anybody says that here, then you have another job. We need to listen to the patient and understand where they are coming from and be able to meet their needs. That is part of the things that we have inculcated into Nordica from inception. We stay abreast of technology, and that is why if you look at our mission and vision they tell a story and that’s what we live on a daily basis.
Nordica was 10 years in 2013. To what extent has the vision of Nordica been fulfilled?
When you want to be the preferred, then you know that it is a moving target. On a daily basis we are having many more IVF centers and we want to stay in front, so you have to be a moving target. I will say we are on the road, we are not there yet, but we are on the road to achieving that, but today is better than yesterday even on this road. So I think we are taking baby steps but we are going there.
How would you compare the consumer/patient experience in a Nordica hospital in Nigeria with the experience they would have in another Nordica in Europe?
There are two points of view: from the provider point of view and from the way the customer sees us. We are coming from the point of view that we want to offer you the kind of service that you will get if you are in Denmark. If you close your eyes you will forget that you are in Nigeria. That is what we have in mind to offer. The other part to look at it again is that: Is the consumer behaving like a consumer in Denmark? and that is where we have also seen that there is a challenge here. You will see us doing a lot of public enlightenment, because we want our consumer to be as enlightened as the consumer anywhere in the world, so that they can also know how IVF works. What we get most of the time now is people are asking you for something that the technology cannot even deliver. That is because they are still in the dark about what the technology is all about. Every technology has limitations. So if you are asking for what the technology cannot deliver, then it becomes very difficult and then it also gives room to quacks, because I will tell you that I can deliver that, but anybody who is vast knows that the technology cannot deliver what you are asking for. e.g. A 45 year old woman walks into your clinic - I still encountered that this morning- the sperm count is 1 million, she is 45 years, she says I want to use my egg and I want to use my husband’s sperm. Common, what are you looking for? You are probably not going to produce eggs. But if she knows from the beginning that at my age, my eggs might not be too good, my husband’s sperms are not very good, we definitely might need help somewhere. When the doctor is talking to her about help, she doesn’t see it from the point of view of - because some people see it as if you have reserved eggs somewhere and you want to sell those eggs at all cost. But I don’t get annoyed about that, I know it is because they don’t understand it and that is what we really need to do. All of us, who are into this need to educate our people on what the technology is about, what are the limitations of the technology and what to expect from the technology.
Going forward, what are your plans personally and for your practice?
I no longer have any plan as a person, at least for now. I don’t know whether in the future or may be when I retire I will be able to have my own personal plan. Nordica has dominated my life in the last 11years and it is still dominating my life. I don’t think I have any personal plan. My only personal plan is on Sunday when I go to church, that is the only time I know I have my own personal plan. We still intend to go about how to fulfill the vision of Nordica. That is what I sleep and wake up to every day - how can we really be the preferred assisted conception provider, so that is still what I think we need to do. Our vision is to be the preferred assisted conception provider globally and that for me is a big challenge and we really need to do a lot of work. We need to continue to see how we can be relevant in Nigeria, in Africa and all over the world. So that is where the plan is, because it is a moving target, so we need to continue to keep it in view and do everything to make sure that we achieve it.
What is the place of Nordica in the drive towards universal health insurance coverage?
That is the toughest question you have asked me. I am not a pessimist, I am a realist; I know that we cannot cover infertility treatment now in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), because we are still struggling with the basic things. We cannot say convincingly that we are covering malaria and TB and these are treatment that doesn’t cost much. By the time we are coming to this, because fertility treatment is like at the pinnacle of it all. They are expensive all over the world, so for now I don’t see us being able to do that. But, I see that it is possible for some parastatals to start, and I think some parastatals are thinking about it. Don’t ask me whether that is fair or not (Laughs), but I think it is a move in the right direction that something about government is even thinking in that direction. You know the big problem that we have in Nigeria. We can do almost anything in Nigeria but the people have said that most problems in Nigeria are a common sense type, we just fail to apply them. I don’t see us touching infertility treatment right now. Just like, I would want also government to set up IVF centers- I don’t know if it would be successful, because we know that infertility doesn’t respect anybody whether you are rich or poor you can have infertility and because the private hospital is the best, and it is like that all over the world. IVF is one part of medical practice that is dominated by private practitioners because a lot of decision needs to be made and can’t wait till tomorrow. You can’t start saying you want to go and see a board before you can buy a Incubator. There are so many things that need to be done right now that is why it is more successful in the private side than in the public side. I seriously don’t see government going into it right now.
What is your view towards Medical tourism as it concerns management of infertility?
Most of the things we do in Nigeria, we do it because we don’t have enough information about many things. That is why for me I think a medical website like yours might also help people to understand some things they need to know e.g. I see a woman, she is 45years. She wants to go to the UK for IVF. The truth is that she is wasting her time. Why? Because 90% of the time she would need donor eggs. The waiting time in the UK for a black woman to get donor eggs is at least 4 years; does she want to wait for 4 years? The answer is No. So what is she going to do there? If she falls into the hand of an unscrupulous doctor, he will say okay come and do this treatment like that. Of course it is going to fail. So those are the things I think Nigerians need to understand. But everybody just says, I am taking my wife to the UK, and I say, are you sure that is what you really want to do? So we need a lot of information. People need to start reading; the culture of reading is dying in Nigeria at a horrible rate. Even the people who called themselves educated don’t read. I used to like this bill board at Bonny Camp it says -a man who does not read is as good as a man who doesn’t know how to read. They have taken the billboard down… .may be by people who do not read ( Laughs). We don’t read, and that is the reason why so many things happen in Nigeria. Because some of the things that you are seeing and you think is new, they are not new, they are things that have happened somewhere else before and they have been documented, but because we don’t read them, when you see them, you shout ‘ki le le yi o’? What is this? It is not new and I think that is one thing that we really need to do, people need to start reading. Internet is the most wonderful invention in this life time. That it is possible for me to know about everything with my cell phone, but what do we use it for: Facebook, and some other things that are not profitable. I think people need to start reading because that will empower us seriously in every facet not only in medical but especially in medical. You talk to a man who has a PHD and he says you know I am not a doctor, do I care whether you are a doctor? You are learned, if you are careful, you can even have more information than the medical doctor. I have a friend who used to work at the Nigeria breweries who had a leg ulcer and they had gone everywhere. Finally, they took him to an expert somewhere in the Netherland. Because this guy had had this ulcer for a long while, he knew everything about leg ulcers. So the professor came during the ward round and everybody was running after him, one old man. He started moving ‘stuff’, but it was old stuff that he was moving and when he said do this and the man- a black man- said to him: Sir, are you sure that is what you want to do? I just read two weeks ago that…….. and the professor got annoyed and stormed out of the ward, that you want to tell me what to do. Fortunately, there was a resident who had read the same article and took it to the professor, sir what that man said it true. This is it and that was how the man got healed. Patients need to know that the body is your own not the doctors. The doctor is human, he would make mistakes, but when he is making a mistake with your own body, it is 100% mortality to you and your family. We need to start sharing responsibility with doctors. It is their job I know, but they are human beings and they are treating over 100 patients at the same time, but you are yourself. I am not saying being stupid and then start arguing with your doctors, that is not the idea. That is why we are interested in this endometriosis- pushing it to the public so that sometimes it will be the patient to ask the doctor: Doctor, do you think I have endometriosis? because that might just be what will make everything to fall in place. So this idea of looking at doctors as if they are gods is gone, that era is gone. We are human beings and we can make mistakes. The best endometriosis doctors are the ones who listen, but the people who say: Are you teaching me my job? You are a malingerer. The problem is in your head. They don’t get it. So I think medical practice is changing and we should change with it.
What is your advice to young doctors and medical students?
Fantastic! That is my trade secret and I don’t know why you want to ask me (Laughs) - because that is what I have been telling my daughter. She is a very young doctor. Doctors should get management knowledge. We have done enough havoc to our profession by not knowing how to manage resources and by resources I mean every part of resources: human, money, everything. We are so intelligent but we are so silly when it comes to administration and that should come to an end. That is the only problem that we have as doctors and now we should start seeing one or two or three people getting to fill that gap, that I want to do hospital administration. We think everybody should see patients, I am sorry I don’t believe it. We should now start looking at how we run our hospitals. Take it away from the people who do not understand what hospital management is all about. We should start managing the hospital and manage them properly. If it is a private hospital, profitably. The era of when a doctor comes to the hospital in the evening and asks, how much did you make? He is going to drink beer and collects all the money (Laughs). I am sure that era is probably coming to an end. But we still need to do better. We need to look at how to manage hospitals. I think many more doctors should start studying management. Nobody is born a manager you need to be trained. Even in other parts of the world they are seeing it now. In America they have seen it. I was in a course about six years ago and they were describing how the health care systems were being run in France some years back. It is just laughable. But now everybody knows that you need to manage health care, and I think the same should happen in Nigeria- we should start managing our health care. I am not a person who says every Chief Medical Director (C.M.D) must be a doctor or is not a doctor. That is not my business. Every C.M.D must be somebody who can manage. So I think that is where the young doctors should start looking at. We have enough Gynecologists. I am not saying don’t make more Gynecologists that is not what I am saying but out of them there should be some people who can manage. We need more entrepreneurs among the doctors and who is an entrepreneur if you cannot manage resources. That’s where I think the future of medical practice should be.
