Medical Tourism-Issues in Nigeria

Obuh Joy ,Onobun Marie-Terese ,Eluwa Onyeje ,Azama Abigael Alao ,Aguele Oluwakemi Omolara

doi:10.7176/dcs/10-8-05

Abstract

This study was carried out with the aim of evaluating the effects medical tourism has on Nigeria. This was done focusing on the trends on three major concerns which are: the effect of medical tourism on the health status of Nigerians, the effect of medical tourism on Nigeria’s economy and lastly, why medical tourism by Nigerians despite the development in our medical sector. Data for this study were collected majorly from secondary sources and the Desk review method of data analysis was used. This primarily entails the examination and evaluation of several studies using the Scoping review research design of collecting and collating important information for the research. This allowed for expansion of knowledge on other key areas that were not related to the scope of study, such as social health development and several others. Findings revealed that indeed, medical tourism by Nigerians has had some effects on several sectors of the country, one of which is a reduction in the revenue for sustaining the source country’s (Nigeria) local health sector and as a result, leads to poor performance on the medical officers, as they are short of logistics and facilities and in turn leads to lack of trust in medical practitioners and also high mortality rate. If the millions of Naira spent by some Nigerian government officials and the Nigerian elites on medical tourism abroad, are put into effective infrastructural development and are made to receive medical treatments here in Nigeria, they would indeed be doing the economy and the general image of the nation’s health status /sector a lot of good. Keywords: Medical tourism, health, scoping review research design DOI: 10.7176/DCS/10-8-05 Publication date: August 31 st 2020

Highlights

Nigeria, a country situated in West Africa with a population over 190 million citizens is blessed to be situated in the rain forest region, which provides mangroves and several other natural habitat for tourist attraction, where Nigeria seems not to be thriving is on a major sector, which is medical tourism
Online simple random sampling will be used to select work done in medical tourism in the country in other to know the issue of medical tourism in Nigeria and its effect on Nigerian’s health status
"Does Medical tourism have an effect on Nigeria's economy? Drawing conclusively from the answer to the problem provided by question one, and evidence from available reports indicates that medical tourism doesn't just affect the health sector, it variably has an adverse effect on the economic sector as well

Summary

Introduction

A country situated in West Africa with a population over 190 million citizens is blessed to be situated in the rain forest region, which provides mangroves and several other natural habitat for tourist attraction, where Nigeria seems not to be thriving is on a major sector, which is medical tourism. An example of such a shift could be found on several medical journals on how most Americans travel to Mexico or even India for some specific treatments, not because America as a whole, which is one of the worlds most developed nation do not have good hospitals, doctors or surgeons but because it is either more affordable to get these health care services abroad than within their country or just for the flare of getting such medical attention abroad.

Results

Conclusion