The Federal Government of Nigeria plans to invest N9 billion ($27.5million) to upgrade hospitals in the country, in a bid to put an end to foreign medical trips by locals. This was revealed by the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, last Tuesday in Abuja.

The official who was addressing civil society organizations added: What the ministry of health is doing is going into partnership with the private sector and tertiary institutions, with the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority. The idea is to upgrade a number of hospitals by getting first class facilities to have the best practice. We have some of the best doctors everywhere in the world; so, apart from the local ones, we want to entice some doctors in the Diaspora to also come back. One of the constraints they keep on telling us when we tell them to return is that the facilities are not good enough; so we want to upgrade the facilities so that they can come back.”

It should be recalled that the National Assembly in February announced plans to increase its total allocation for the health sector in the 2017 budget from N304 billion ($878.8million) to N1.1 trillion ($3.2 billion). This is as locals spend over N314 billion ($908 million) annually on medical treatment abroad.

Anita Fatunji