Nigerians spent about $3bn on foreign healthcare-related services from 2020 to 2022, according to findings by The PUNCH.
The total spending for the period under review was obtained from the Balance of Payments database of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
This came to the fore on Tuesday as the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors insisted on starting a warning strike on Wednesday.
The doctors are starting the strike despite the fact that the Federal Government said it had begun talks with their parent body, the Nigerian Medical Association.
The least bill for medical tourism was in 2016 (about $17m) while the highest amount was spent in 2019 ($2.56bn).
About $783.77m was spent in 2017, while about $1.67bn was spent in 2018.
Since 2019, successive appropriation bills also allocated a total of N24.24bn for the “construction of the presidential wing at the State House Medical Centre.”
The breakdown is as follows: N395.83m (2019), N416.67m (2020), N1.06bn (2021), N21.97bn (2022) and N393.66m (2023).
The State House Medical Centre has been allocated N9.67bn while the Federal Ministry of Health has been allocated about N4.04tn from 2016 to 2023.
In 2016, the Ministry of Health received N250bn, while in 2017, N304.1bn was allocated.
The 2018 budget indicated that the ministry had N356.4bn, while in 2019, N372.7bn went to the ministry.
In 2020, N414.4bn was budgeted for health and the 2021 budget allocated N549.8bn to the Ministry of Health.
The President allocated N1.08tn to the Ministry of Health. Compared to the previous year, the health sector budget increased from 714bn. However, the N1.08tn only accounts for 4.93 per cent of the total budget. This is significantly less than the benchmark of the World Health Organization to allocate at least 15 per cent of the annual national budget to health.
The standard of healthcare in the country has been questioned over the years citing underfunding as a major factor, causing several Nigerian doctors to migrate to other developed countries.
A bill seeking to prescribe a jail term of seven years and, or a fine of N500m narrowly passed second reading at the House of Representatives in February last year.
Sponsored by Sergius Ogun (Peoples Democratic Party/Edo), the legislation is titled ‘A Bill for an Act to Amend the National Health Act, 2014; and for Related Matters.’
Leading the debate on the bill, Ogun noted that the objective of the proposal was to amend the Act “so as to make provision for sanctions against any public officer who violates the provisions of the Act, especially Section 46 of the Act.
The section reads, ‘Without prejudice to the right of any Nigerian to seek check-up, investigation or treatment anywhere within and outside Nigeria, no public officer of the Government of the Federation or any part thereof shall be sponsored for a check-up, investigation or treatment abroad at public expense except in exceptional cases on the recommendation and referral by the medical board and which recommendation and referral shall be duly approved by the Minister or Commissioner of Health of the state as the case may be.’
Ogun said, “This bill, which seeks to amend the National Health Act, is borne out of a desire to discourage medical treatment abroad at the detriment of our indigenous health institutions. The need to revamp the poor state of the healthcare sector in Nigeria, among other things, is the reason for introducing this bill.
“It is no news that Nigeria’s health care system is in a deplorable state and needs urgent attention. There is a paucity of infrastructure, a dearth of medical personnel, poor standards and many other challenges that need to be addressed. The intent of this bill is to spur public officers to pay more attention to our health care sector and take drastic steps to develop and improve on the sector.”
(Upshotreports)