Abuja – The Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria says availability of quality medical laboratory services will curb medical tourism in the country.
The Registrar of the council, Prof. Anthony Emeribe, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja that test result as one of the surest way to curtail the menace of medical tourism.
Emeribe noted that many Nigerians paid huge sums of money in order to access quality health care.
He described laboratory test result as indexes required for proper medical diagnosis, adding that failure to produce quality result would amount to exercise in futility.
While saying that the medical personnel in Nigeria were efficient, the registrar however observed that they could not perform magic when the empirical data that enabled them make proper diagnosis was faulty.
“We have good doctors in the country but they cannot perform magic if the empirical data that enables them to make proper diagnosis is faulty.
“Indexes required for proper decisions for medical diagnosis is dependent on laboratory test results. So when you have shabby labs in teaching hospitals, federal medical centres and elsewhere what do you expect?
“You find situations where you go to five teaching hospitals or medical centres and you get five different results, how will the treatment be successful,’’ he said.
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NAN reports that medical tourism is a form of health tourism that has to do with travelling of people to another country for the purpose of obtaining medical treatment in that country.
Traditionally, people would travel from less-developed countries to major medical centres in highly developed countries for medical treatment that was unavailable in their own communities.
The registrar said that in order to ensure quality healthcare services, all health facilities in the country, both medical centres and federal teaching hospitals, must key into quality management system.
According to him, this can be achieved by getting your policies, processes and procedures right as well as getting the right calibre of people and ensuring all instruments are well calibrated.
Similarly, Dr Ben Anyene, Chairman Board of Trustee, Health Reform Foundation (HERFON), however, said medical tourism as a means employed by governments to utilise public funds to treat themselves abroad.
He described the process as waste of resources adding that the only way to curtail the menace was when the nation’s health system and facilities are functional.
“Medical tourism is simply government taking our own money to pay for people to treat themselves abroad.
“There is nothing wrong for people to travel abroad to treat themselves, but if we can get our health facilities and system to work we should be able to treat ourselves and cut down external medical attention.
“The one most of us are against is using our own money to pay for people in service, whether public or civil service to go and treat themselves up to the laughable things like malaria.
“This is all waste of resources, let us fix the system, if we do that things will work in this country then nobody will travel.
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“Why should we go to Dubai or India to have treatment? Why can’t we do it in Nigeria? We have Nigerians that can render these services,’’ he said. (NAN)