Foreign Medical Treatment Is National Embarrassment – Emir Sanusi

By Abdulmumin Murtala, Kano

Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II of Kano on Saturday berated Nigerian elites for prioritizing foreign medical treatment describing as a national embarrassment the fact that the cost of one foreign treatment could ordinarily have resolved thousands of preventable deaths in the country.

Emir Sanusi spoke in an address at the commissioning of the Tissue Typing and Cross Match Laboratory Equipment at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital on Friday.

The project was facilitated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC which expended N230m for the equipment.

The emir challenged the NNPC to expend two days worth of oil subsidy in completing the transplant centre so that it could itself become the point of medical tourism from abroad.

He said:

“Even from the perspective of national pride, it will seem to me a major national embarrassment that Nigerians have to go to Egypt and to Libya and to Dubai for treatment not because we don’t have the doctors here with the capacity but because we have not invested enough in the facilities required” the emir stated.

“In case the General Manager does not clearly get what I am saying, I said the first step which means we expect NNPC to take a second and a third step and in fact instead of spending our time going to America to try and find someone to do it, it will be an amazing contribution to healthcare in Africa if NNPC just completes the centre.

“This is not just about kidney transplant, completing the centre would allow transplant of everything, hearts, lungs, brains.

“Nigeria has the highest burden of sickle cell anaemia, children are dying needlessly and when you consider that, for every one Nigerian, and they are many, for every one Nigerian who goes to Egypt and India and Dubai, we are able to calculate the amount of foreign exchange that is lost.

“What we do not calculate and what we do not realise is that for every one Nigerian who is able to go there, there are thousands who have died in Nigeria because they cannot go there. So the foreign exchange cost that we count is nothing, it’s nothing if we are to put a value on those who die in thousands. You can’t even compare to the amount of money you spend to save those who survive.”

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