Former Ondo
State governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, has urged the Federal Government and its
state counterparts to muster enough political will to discontinue the practice
of Nigerians travelling abroad for medical treatment. The Medical
Doctor-turned-politician said In Ibadan, the Oyo State capital on Thursday that
the constant
‘’relocation’’ of Nigerians overseas for medical tourism is a sort
of clear message to the various governments at all levels, because Nigeria has
abundant medical practitioners, who are celebrated all over the world, but that
the required infrastructures necessary for them to practice their trade in the
country are lacking.
Mimiko was
the guest speaker at the 51st Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference
of the International College of Surgeons, Nigeria National Section, held at the
University College Hospital, Ibadan.
The event,
which had the theme, ‘The role of surgery in trauma care’, also had in
attendance the Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi, who was represented by the
state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr Azeez Adeduntan.
Mimiko said;
“The message is to the governments at all levels. We have cutting edge medical
professionals scattered all around the world. But at home, we must have the
necessary infrastructure, equipment, gadget and the technology before you can
practice your act.
“If we build
state -of- the- art facilities and create the enabling environment, people will
come to Nigeria for medical treatment because we have the personnel. Above all,
we need the political will to do all these.”
The former
Minister of Housing, added that through the absence of an organized road
traffic and trauma care in Nigeria, the country has lost a great percentage of
its youth population to preventable road accidents .
“The
greatest killer of our young adults from age 15 – 29 in Nigeria is road traffic
accident. The situation is getting worse and government at all levels must sit
down to fashion out a comprehensive emergency medical service to be able to
respond adequately to this public health epidemic.
“Essentially,
there are important legs to road accident and number one is the attitude of our
people. According to the World Health Organisation, most accidents are caused
by bad behaviours like over-speeding, drunk driving, failure to use safety belt
and so on. Our intervention as a nation must be preventive. It must aim at
getting the right attitude.
On his efforts
as a governor while in office in this regards, He said “When I was the Ondo
State governor, we built state -of- the- art motor parks with waiting rooms and
we banned the sales of alcoholic beverages at these parks.
’The
psychological environment of our motor parks is perhaps the number one trigger
mechanism for many road accidents. In Ondo, we changed the ambience at the
parks to drive home the importance of safety point.”
‘’It is
important to design roads in such a way that it would have walk -ways for pedestrians,
and there must be ambulance with advanced life- saving gadgets appropriately
located around the country to save accident victims…”
“We must
also have trained paramedics with advanced equipment like the ones we used in
Ondo State, that can turn apart any vehicle and rescue victims. The first one
hour after an accident is golden and that is when we lose most victims because
there is no system in place to attend to them immediately,” says the former
governor.’’
Africa Center for Clin Gov Research &
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Joseph Ana has a cumulative continuous practice experience of over 40-years in
Nigeria, United Kingdom and Ghana as a Primary Health Care Physician, Public
Health Expert, General and Urological Surgeon, Health Policy Expert and
Implementer, Medical Educator and Trainer..
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