‘Nigeria accounts for 20% of foreigners seeking medical attention in India’

Written by Uchechukwu Olisa
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Over 20 per cent of foreign patients seeking medical treatment in India are
from Nigeria, the National President of Association of Medical Laboratory
Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN), Dr Godswill Okara, said a recent study had
revealed.
Dr Okara, who made this known at the 48th annual scientific conference of
AMLSN on Tuesday in Benin City, Edo State also lamented the ranking of
Nigerian health care system in the 2011 Mo Ibrahim African Governance Index
as 51 out of 53 countries in Africa.
He said this development, which called for concern, was the result of
unmitigated mismanagement and poor administrative leadership of the health
care sector, as well as the unhealthy rivalry and bickering in the sector.
According to him, the conference, with the theme, “ Health care System in
Nigeria: The Medical Laboratory Imperatives” was apt and timely, as it came
at a time Nigeria had continued to search for solution to the declining status of
the health care system and the ever worsening indices of maternal and infant
mortality rates.
Okara said medical laboratory remained “the key to the cure,” as treatment
without diagnosis is a waste of resources, just as he observed that “the fight
against diseases and ill health will be won and lost in the medical laboratory.”
The AMLSN National President said there was the need to vigorously
institutionalise the 12 quality management essentials in the laboratory
practice of members of the association in Nigeria with a view to ensuring
accurate and reliable laboratory results that would strengthen the health care
system and engender public confidence:::