President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday blamed the increase in medical tourism by Nigerians on the unfriendly attitude of health workers in the country.
Buhari made this claim while speaking at the official commissioning of an International Conference Centre and Telemedicine hall and six other projects at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Abeokuta.
The President who was represented by the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, spoke on the need for continuous training and retraining of health workers to deliver Nigerians quality health care services.
He said, “We still get all too often for comfort, disconcerting reports of not friendly attitudes of staff to patients, reports of unhygienic and housekeeping standards that leaves something to be desired even in the presence of sophisticated equipment and well-qualified doctors”.
“Such simple failings like these 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”, he said.
“We have a lot of work to do in that area. I want to believe that the managers of our hospitals, after such laudable, fantastic infrastructure investment, will now begin to pay attention, not only to improving staff harmony and welfare but to retraining health caregivers for better professionalism that deliver service in a productive and courteous atmosphere based on the lessons we learnt from our traditional African hospitality”.
