NMA Wants End To Medical Tourism

The Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Rivers State chapter, has said it would ensure that medical tourism is brought to an end in the state.

Chairman of the association, Ibitrokoemi Kurubo, gave this indication in a chat with The Tide in his office in Port Harcourt.

Dr Kurubo said medical tourism was unacceptable , saying that the associations would pursue the matter through legal means and make an example of some doctors who fraudulently extort money from their patients.

He said, “this cannot continue, we are pursuing it through the law, we have sent a bill to the State House of Assembly, we  also included it in the National Health Policy Bill, we will stop at nothing and even discipline and doctor who continues to extort money from his patients’.

The NMA boss stated that the trend is  a dangerous one and explained that medical referral is different from medical tourism.

“Medical referral is different from medical tourism. In medical referral, I see a patient, it is either I don’t have the necessary skill or equipment to handle the ailment. I now refer the patient to a better centre in Nigeria. It is where there is no medical centre that can handle it in Nigeria that we can now refer abroad with documentation and no financial gratification to me”, he said.

According to him in medical tourism, the referring medical doctor receives some amount of money from the hospital which he refers the patient, and mentioned that some doctors are given as much as $2,000 to “send patients abroad for silly things that can be handled here”.

He noted that only very few government officials who travel abroad for medical care use their money, “the rest use tax payers money. We at NMA are saying that if you are a government or public servant, first of all register at Primary Health Centre, from where you may be referred to the secondary then tertiary medical centre, where these can not help you then you may be referred abroad alone with evidence of your medical industry”.

“If you find yourself going abroad, you must assure NMA, Rivers State, that the fisherman or market woman who has the same problem would also have the same cages like you”, he continued.

He further said, “if we do this, what will happen is that, they will end up fixing our health system and train doctors so that we can other the services as abroad”.

He added that NMA was doing its best to sanitise medical practice and render better services to the public.

Tonye Nria-Dappa