Fresh facts have emerged on why serving and prominent public office holders in Nigeria always prefer to treat themselves in foreign hospitals.

A prominent leader of All Progressives Congress (APC) disclosed this recently when he spoke at an exclusive event, denying that presidents, governors, ministers and other categories of public office holders shunned hospitals in Nigeria because the facilities were not up to standard or they had no qualified personnel.

The politician, whose name cannot be mentioned here because of the sensitive nature of the issue, explained that some individuals, before they became public office holders, had some peculiar health challenges and medical history that they would not want to make public.

“Now, as politicians, they are being careful about who has access to their medical records because people can use such records for some sinister motives,” he said.

According to him, “Although it is still human beings that take care of these people in foreign hospitals, the patients who go there are more comfortable and may not be nursing the fear that their medical records could be used against them by their political opponents.”

The party man further said: “We are all human beings. There are secrets that people have that would follow them to the grave, because they would never disclose to anybody. But when it comes to ill-health, there is nothing anybody can do; you don’t even know who is touching you and what is going on around you. For this reason, some people want to go to some places where their privacy is guaranteed.”

Medical tourism has, over the years, been a controversial issue in Nigeria as presidents and other public office holders jet out on a regular basis to seek medical help in hospitals abroad amid allegations of perennial neglect of the nation’s health sector.

The late President Umaru Yar’Adua had a health challenge that took him away from his office on several occasions to tend to his health abroad. This continued until he lost the battle in 2010.

Until his death, the nature of Yar’Adua’s illness was not officially made public. The much that was known was just a guarded secret that was picked from the rumour mills.

The late President Muhammadu Buhari, who, before he mounted the saddle, had criticised his predecessors for jetting abroad for medical help, promising instead to fix the nation’s health sector, was to become the worst.

His medical tourism became so frequent that on one occasion, he spent about six months in London at the expense of governance in Nigeria.

Buhari was heavily criticised for medical tourism because his frequent travels to the UK for his own healthcare while urging Nigerians to use local facilities and promising to fix the system, creating a perception of hypocrisy and a lack of faith in Nigeria’s own health sector.

Critics, including doctors and opposition parties, pointed out that his actions undermined his administration’s efforts to improve healthcare and exacerbated brain drain, with many Nigerians seeing it as a “national shame.”

He continued the medical trips until he left office on May 29, 2023.

President Bola Tinubu has also maintained that culture of seeking medical solution abroad. Since he was inaugurated as president on May 29, 2023, Tinubu has been a regular visitor to hospitals in France, a habit that has also attracted criticism from many Nigerians.

Unfortunately, however, these political office holders are impervious to criticism and, so, would continue to seek medical help abroad in spite of everything, including public outcry and condemnation. (BusinessDay)

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