At least two bones snapped in his neck, some more in his legs and hips, x-rays show. Since then, he’s been on his back on a mattress and grown to nearly 33 years old without leaving his bed.
Emory personifies the nightmare of healthcare—surgeries that didn’t work, surgeries that never held, and future surgeries too expensive to be possible.
In years since then developed an infection under his penis, pressure sores have eaten deep into his buttocks and sides, osteoporosis has set in making his bones fragile, and his knees and joints have stiffened from lack of use.
His hospital bill? N7.762 million ($39,000) at least—split two ways between a hospital in India and another in the US.
Daniel just wants to be well, so money is no object—if he has it. He doesn’t. But he incarnates the dilemma that medical tourism presents to Nigeria: health or money.
Health industry around the world has become so globalised, and the internet has pushed it further.
Time was when no one knew about groundbreaking surgeries around the world.
Now, an internet subscription to a health journal lays bare the nuts and bolts of a surgery, and a call gets the surgeon on the phone to anyone who can afford the cost.
The medical tourism world is so pervasive, targeting patients beyond borders: websites showcase thousands of experts, treatments, hospitals—and allow patients to compare prices.
Agencies are muscling into developing countries to recruit patients beyond borders. “The client will always be there. The elites will always go out, no matter how many hospitals you have here,” says Martin Okonkwo, CEO Martreach Global Services, an agency which facilitates trips for individuals travelling abroad for healthcare.
“It is not a Nigerian thing. It is a worldwide thing.”
More than 5,000 Nigerians travel to India and other countries every month on medical tourism, and they cost the country over $500 million (N78 billion) annually, the Nigerian Medical Association has warned.
Each medical tourist is said to spend between $20,000 and $40,000 on average on each trip.
India was projected to get up to $2 billion in 2012 from a global medical tourism market valued at $20 billion a year.
Medical tourism is here to stay, and even the government is fighting a losing battle against it.
Nigerian government has instead begun waging a new war—making the country a hub in the West African region at least to secure a place in the globalised healthcare world fuelled by medical tourism.
It uses the ammunition of luring Nigerian health workers back home, contending with creating the sort of environment that can keep workers, ending rancour in its health care system, and using a partnership between public and private (PPP) health sector.
“It is only now that the government is realising we have qualified people who can do most of the things people go to India for,” says Tony Ephraim, president, Guild of Medical Directors.
“When most of us were in medical school, most of these Indians were our students, our colleagues. They came to us, and they went back home to regroup. But we on ground, we decided because of the economy in the country, our specialists in the country decided to move out for greener pastures, and they stayed out instead of staying in to build and let us use what we have. But now our qualified Nigerians are coming back.”
The first PPP experiment is Garki Hospital, right in the heart of the capital Abuja. State governments have set up their individual PPP experiments.
The federal government upped the ante by pumping money into renovating teaching hospitals and federal medical centres to compete on the same scale as the hospitals luring patients like Daniel to India.
This year, hospitals pitted against each other in the first-ever healthcare exhibition to show off their latest gizmos and procedures.
“There are many that are able to do things that are being done in India. Most of them go to India, and come back here,” says Ephraim. “So now the government is saying oh, so what we have been going out for is here.”
Nigeria’s banking halls compete with any bank anywhere in the world. But hospitals don’t always stack up in terms of facilities, to the chagrin of stakeholders and patients marching out by the thousands.
Chika Okoli’s parents bought into the story. Aged two years and seven months, he’d lived since birth with a hole in his heart. Paediatric cardiothoracic surgeons offered surgery in India at N2.5 million.
His parents chose a mission supported by Hospitals for Humanity and a bill for N2m—paying half to get the surgery done close to home, cutting out travel and accommodation and extra stay a surgery in India would require.
“In the past they were sent to countries like India and elsewhere to get these procedures done,” says Segun Ajayi, founder of Hospitals for Humanity. “We are proving that these cases can be done here in Nigeria at much cheaper rates and much safer.”
Nigeria isn’t alone on the receiving end of medical tourism. American patients travel abroad for treatment to cut costs. Nigerian patients don’t necessarily cut costs.
The reasons are needless for Daniel. His only consideration is get the pressure sores off, infection out, and get back on his feet. Even if it requires becoming a medical tourist.
