What are the major reasons why you have been successful in practice and business?
Basically, it is about having passion for what you want to do. Irrespective of the challenges that you meet along the line, if you have passion, you will always overcome it. When you even have difficulties, you will have opportunities. Like Albert Einstein said – “In all difficulties, there are opportunities” so I believe in that and I believe in working very hard- but most importantly, I put God first in what I do.
What has been your greatest challenge in practice/business?
The greatest challenges in practice and business have been the economic environment in Nigeria, finance and human resource management. You need to have a very strong will to really overcome some of these challenges- like in medical business you need power and for you to have a business that is of quality that is going to deliver quality health care, there must be power almost 24hours and you know what this means. You need water, you need access, human resource, and you need to build capacity. These are the challenges, but just the way I have said, with God and passion you can always overcome. You must have passion for what you are doing. Once you don’t have passion for what you are doing, it is most likely you will not be successful. You must also be driven by a vision, and have mission and core values that will help you to drive it. You must ensure that other people buy into your vision, because as a leader where you have groups of people, people have different vision too as they work with you, for them to realize their vision they have to buy into the vision of the organization and bake the cake so that they can realize their vision and mission. Once the people feel they can’t realize their vision, it is going to draw that organization back. You must let your people buy into your vision and give them the respect that they too have mission and vision
How would you rate your practice when compared nationally and internationally?
Right now we thank God for where we are. On the national level, with the help of God we have reached a fairly good standard in terms of infrastructure. Our hospital can now boast of a very good theatre and a very good labour word, having X-ray and having some facilities that are actually functional and of high quality. We bring about a friendly environment in terms of healthcare delivery because we know that the environment is very key to healing and I rate that with the help of God we have done quite a lot and our patients or our clients are actually happy with the services now at the level that we are rendering these services for them.
We can’t separate that you are also the National President of AGPMPN. How will you rate medical practice in Nigeria as against internationally?
On the national basis I think the only thing that we have said to government is for us to have an international standard of medical practices, it has to be privately driven because the private sector is a business sector. The government is a regulator, so when you assist the private sector by giving an enabling environment - provision of power and other things. I can assure you the private sector in Nigeria will compare favourably with anywhere in the world. But currently, the challenges that the private sector has, will not allow us to compete very favorably, it is going to shoot up the cost of production and you know prices determine where things flow. If your price is competitive, it means that you have a flow towards you. Because you have to be the power source and you have to be the water works, it makes private practice very difficult and there is no subvention. You have to access money at 26%, there is no grant or loan of one digit interest rate with a good moratorium that is payable over ten (10), fifteen (15), twenty (20) years and these are the key challenges and that is why we can’t quickly compete with where those facilities or incentives are available. But in terms of what we are doing in the private sector, we have realized and we have started building more capacity and engaging government and that is why we are in support of the fact that the government have realized that the private sector gives about 60% of healthcare delivery and they need to be strengthened and government realizes that for them to have a reverse of medical tourism, it means that the private sector too has to be strengthened and that is why a committee was set up by the federal government – “Unlocking the potential in the private sector and also the establishment of mega hospitals in the 6 geopolitical zones of the federation” of which I am a member of that committee and I was inaugurated in August last year by the Honorable minister of Health, and there we have been seeing that the factors that will lead to a positive impact on the private health sector and the delivery of good and affordable healthcare include access to some of these few things. Recommendation will come from this committee headed by a Guru in the private business- Tony Elumelu and some other members of the committee including Dr. Onabowale, Prof Akin Sodeyin and including my very good self- so that we can see how government can buy into the fact that the private health sector needs help. Just like the aviation, agriculture and the entertainment sector. If they could have that level of assistance, there must be grants or I won’t call it intervention fund rather Health infrastructure fund that has an executive and not a legislative backing for now as an emergency that the Executive should find that a Health infrastructure fund for the private sector that we can access at one digit interest rate with a moratorium. If that is done, then there is going to be improvement. And also we have to consider for example, there was a time that importing theater lights at the seaport were taken as chandeliers- some may not even know. There must be very good collaboration where by as much bailout in terms of incentive for all the medical equipment’s should be given to the private sector. I think if that one is done, the private sector will be able to compete, but for now, we are not able to compete favourably.
Going forward, where do you see your practice?
Our vision is to be one of the best health solution providers in the world and adopting a system whereby what we are doing centers on the patient, the community and quality. So based on our mission and vision we see our practice by the grace of God in the next 5years competing with practices in the developed world especially when government has done some of these few things, even if government have not done it, we will want to bring our practice to a level that is going to have a diaspora movement of our colleagues to come here. For example, we are trying to see how we can collaborate with our colleagues in St Raphael so that we can have a lot of other surgeries and other important operations and interventions to be done in this hospital. We are also looking at telemedicine -in the nearest future as – as one of the ways we can improve healthcare delivery system in St Raphael and we believe too in eMedicine - electronic records. These are the things we are now working on seriously so that St Raphael in the shortest possible time will be a paperless hospital. We are on that process already and we are going to build on it and we are going invite experts because - I always say something- You cannot do it alone, but we can do it.
What is your association doing to engage government to allocate more resources to the delivery of healthcare services in Nigeria?
I think there should be a political will by government to improve health. Health to us in the private sector is key. The wealth of a nation is determined by the health of our citizens and the population. The percentage that is allocated to health can barely take care of recurrent expenditure. How do you develop the system? How do you develop capacity? How do you go into research? That is why for now our tertiary institutions still carry out the management of malaria, whooping cough and few things that should be done by primary healthcare services. A lot of research is not being carried out because there are no funds so we still depend on the information given by the international community and that is not accepted by us. We ought to have our own base research. There may be a general pattern, but each community has its own peculiar disease pattern. Even the African union came together and agreed on 15% but we are operating much lower (defense takes a huge part the budget). I think government should have the political will to improve budgetary allocation to health and this also will make provision for funds for the private sector to access- whereby the government will be more of regulation and private will drive even tertiary hospitals as seen all over the world. In most tertiary hospitals that are of best standards, they are driven by the private. In India for example (although am not saying this is the platform we are going to use), we can see most of the best hospitals in India are privately owned, because the government there as put in place an enabling environment to draw their colleagues from diaspora back. We should use our own model which is Nigerian based and draw our colleagues in the diaspora so that all those technology can be domiciled here and we spend less.
How can Healthcare funding be improved in Nigeria?
I have advocated has the national president of AGPMPN that the universal health insurance is the answer, out of pocket payment is quite difficult. You must have a universal health insurance in Nigeria and government has a lot of social responsibility to play in this. For example - for now it’s only federal government employees and some private companies that are undergoing managed care. The NHIS is being run by federal government employees. Most of the population is uninsured. How would this be done? One very bad challenge that we have in Nigeria is that health in Nigeria is under concurrent list of the constitution. So the Federal government will say this and the States will say this is how I want to run my own health insurance. But Federal government should also give enabling environment so that the Community Based Health Insurance will thrive. Let people own this insurance and tell them the importance of health insurance than out of pocket. For example, I know Lagos State is working on it seriously to have health insurance scheme in place probably it is going to take care of all the employees and also encourage Lagosians to key into health insurance policy. All these things at the end of the day should result to a universal health insurance where almost all Nigerians will be insured. That will drive health and quality and will help our population to be healthier.
Concerning Medical Tourism, what is the single most important reason why Nigerians travel abroad to seek medical care?
In simple language, anybody can decide to choose where he/she wants to take his/her treatment. The law does not say you must not go in as much as you are not going to use government funds. If it is your funds, you can decide to take health anywhere. But we are unhappy that our people are leaving Nigeria, because it means that many Nigerians have lost confidence in what we can give to them. And unfortunately and unknowing to them, Nigeria has a huge capacity in terms of some of those few things they have gone to do abroad but it is not enough. The government will need to empower the private sector to have a robust health care delivery system that will discourage Nigerians from travelling abroad to seek medical attention- Nigerians need to have confidence that when they go, they are going to have the best, because life is not two (2) and nobody wants to lose his/her life. But if you know that you can get the best at competitive rates and you are confident in Lagos, Abuja, Abeokuta or Ibadan, you will want to go there…. because at the end of the day, you are still going to have one important thing – you are going to have your relations around you and you are going to have those things you cannot get outside. You are still going to have this environment that you are in, which may aid you to recover faster. But when you don’t have confidence- if I go here will I survive? Will I have the best? …..and you have the means - you move. I think Nigeria will have a work more for people to invest and for people to invest in the private sector; all the initial hindrances that I have said must be removed. I think then, we can have a reversal. Even Nigeria can be a medical tourism destination for Africa and beyond if we properly reposition ourselves.
What is your advice to medical students and younger doctors?
I give them the word of hope that by the grace of God, healthcare delivery system will be better in Nigeria - because as of today, the medical students and the younger doctors are grossly unhappy with the situation of healthcare delivery. But I give them the word of hope that once we are able to turn around - where private sectors is empowered to have mega hospitals that are operating at world standard level, they will get enough places to work and practice medicine as is being done in all developed countries.