Buhari explains why eminent Nigerians seek medical care abroad

 President Muhammadu Buhari has revealed major reasons why prominent Nigerians seek medical care outside the country.

Buhari who was represented by the Ministry of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire at the official commissioning of an International Conference Certre and Telemedicine Hall and six other projects at the Federal Medical Center (FMC), Abeokuta, Ogun State, lamented that the unfriendly attitude of health workers toward patients have been pushing many citizens to seek medical care outside the country.

He, however, emphasised the need for continuous training and retraining of health workers to deliver quality health care services to Nigerians.

Buhari said, “We still get all too often for comfort, disconcerting reports of not friendly attitudes of staff to patients, reports of unhygienic and house keeping standards that leaves something to be desired even in the presence of sophisticated equipment and well qualified doctors.

“Such simple failings like this, are more frequently responsible for the loss of confidence of the end users in our health system than even the lack of equipment. They are the triggers for the distrust that will lead people to go on medical tourism,” Buhari said.

Buhari added that “We have a lot of work to do in that area and I want to believe that the managers of our hospitals after such laudable, fantastic infrastructure investment we now begin to pay attention, not only to improving staff harmony and welfare, but to retraining health care givers for even better professionalism that deliver service in a productive and courteous atmosphere based on the lessons we learnt from our traditional African hospitality”.