The Federal Government has offered reasons why Nigeria and Nigerians cannot stop political leaders from going abroad for medicare.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare Muhammad Pate, said this on a Channels Television programme: “Politics Today.”
Pate, who featured on the programme on Friday, said: “Don’t conflate the quality of our healthcare system and what it has to offer and the choices that individuals can make for various reasons.
“Some may choose because they’ve got a provider, or they have other things.
“Tourism is something that everybody has a right to choose wherever he wants to go and you cannot constrain people.
“We are not in a communist system where you say: ‘Everybody has to be treated here.’
“I think if there’s one thing that I want you and your viewers to take away is that there is a disconnect between the prevailing narrative and facts on the ground.
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“The perception that the elites can just walk away and $2 billion goes out in terms of outbound medical tourism.
“But then you have to look closely at our health facilities – federal tertiary institutions that are being reformed, what they are able to do – we have world-class professionals, some are here in Nigeria and some are Nigerians in the diaspora who are coming back here to provide services.
“But the narrative easily gets built that we don’t have anything here.
“As if we want to lose respect for ourselves.
“Everyone, whether rich or poor, whether powerful or weak, has the right to the privacy of their medical records.
“From medical ethics, the patient is king and the patient has the right to his or her privacy.”
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