An enduring system will end medical tourism–Dr. Wada

What is the latest on your partnership agreement with government in respect of Garki Hospital?

The latest is that we have been visited by Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC). It is the federal government’s body responsible for evaluating such agreement. We have also been visited by officials of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA).

So far, it’s been 10 years since the agreement came into being. We got a lot of commendations from ICRC and encouragement as well. Right now, we are waiting for the evaluation report of the FCDA men who also came to access us. Therefore, we are just waiting to put the two sides together.

Have there been challenges in the process?

Yes, because it is the first time in this country that a public hospital was handed to a private hand to be managed for a turn around. I want you to know that NISA Premier Hospital has given the hospital its best shot with open hands and also with the best will in the world.

But the challenge is with the indigent people who cannot fend for themselves and also with medical education. Those are the two pillars.

Take note that it is a public hospital, therefore, one cannot prevent people from coming. I also want you to know that we are not the kind of people that can tell patients to go back or turn them back on account of their economic situation, so we help them within our means and that consumes a lot of resources.

The second one is the extensive investment in the project. It will help the National health system for us to train doctors and other health personal, and on our own we have been training them but such trainings are for the community and not for our own benefits.

Therefore, ideally it should be funded but the hospital has been battling to get good training for the doctors; that is, General Duty Doctors being converted to specialist, House Doctors being converted to fully registered doctors.

In any other civilisation, public money must come to help because what does the private individual gain from doing that? Nothing directly. So, we are losing a lot of resources based on indigency and expected medical training

Given the quality of facilities and personnel in some hospital in the country, why do you think medical tourism thrives in Nigeria?

Well, it’s a culture, so it takes a long time to defeat it. You know it is not possible to develop confidence overnight just because in the last 10 years or so there are prominent hospitals under my watch. People will need time and more evidence to change their behaviour.

The sure word I can give you today is that this hospital receives patients from London, Canada, from West Africa and that is the message I want to pass on. It is not about stopping Nigerians from going abroad, but building systems that attract people to stay.

Money goes out; money comes in until the balance is struck. Our efforts at NISA and Garki is to make ourselves beautiful bride to the world and hope that Nigerians will buy in over time.

What special medical services are available in your facility?

Well, one of them is treatment for kidney diseases in particular, where it comes to an end stage and your kidney needs to be changed. We call it kidney transplantation.

It is routine for us now; it is no more a challenge. We have a team that can do this.

The second one is about heart surgeries, where whether you are a child or an adult and your heart is sick, we can fix it. This is a unique kind of surgery. And of course, one of the greatest issues that relate to the black man is sickle cell anaemia.

We have facilities to prevent couples conceiving sickle cell affected children; this is uncommon. So many other things are in the works at the moment.

What is your take on quite a number of Nigerians resorting to prayers, self-medication and use of herbs for medical conditions?

To be honest with you, it is a mixture of things. We have seen people who are now so health educated about themselves that every little thing they seek help in the right places. But they are few and far between.

The larger population are people who go for prayers and they do all sorts of cultural rites and herbal rites. I respect our traditional medicine, I propose that they are also developed like the Chinese people have done their own.

It’s wrong for us to kill our own but at this moment, it is important to have primary health care centres near people’s places of abode, so that they can go there without having to pay. Because one of the problems is that when you go to a proper hospital, they will require you to buy cards and do other things.

If the system allows you to go to a primary health care centre and money is not an issue, I see more people coming out early to look for cure for their diseases.

Do you think that government is doing enough to integrate and regulate traditional medical practitioners so as to protect the people from the dangers of harmful medications?

I know that in the 70’s and 80’s, there was a significant effort on ground to create side by side options. But that seems to have died down now.

The best way is to have an educational system around them because these are traditional practices that were more like oral tradition and apprenticeship that were not formalised.

So, one of the ways is to say this drug or herb will cure prostrate, for example. The right thing is to subject it to test, may be with NAFDAC and other pharmaceutical research agencies.

If it does not work, nothing is lost. Leave it and move to the next one. And not trying to bring them into the main stream is not a good option too.

Life expectancy in the country appears to be reducing as compared to what obtained before now. What do you think is responsible for this?

That is a very a difficult question because to be honest with you, the reason our life expectancy is less is coming from accident, recklessness, drunk driving. It is also coming from infections like HIV/AIDS and its attendant secondary infections because your immunity is very weak.

It is coming from child birth, it is coming from other preventable things, rather than diet or poverty. I don’t think that climate change is claiming lives, as assumed. There is no practical evidence to suggest that because it is warm all over the place including the western world, and they give us a 20 to 30 years additional life compared to our own average life expectancy.

So, I think prevention of those preventable conditions will still be my answer.

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