Something good is coming to Africa with the official take-off of the construction of the estimated $300 million first African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE) in Abuja. The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) is implementing the project in partnership with the Federal Government of Nigeria, King’s College Hospital, London, the Christie Hospital, Manchester and the University of Wisconsin Teaching Hospital, United States of America (USA). It is aimed at developing a world-class medical facility for Africa and reducing the outflow of patients from the continent.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who spoke at the virtual groundbreaking ceremony of the centre, lamented the lack of world-class medical infrastructure in Africa. This problem, he noted, “is further exacerbated by the significant brain drain experienced by the continent. The flight of doctors and nurses to other continents has resulted in a significant gap between the required treatments for Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and the available treatments and care.”
As observed by the President and Chairman of the Board of Afreximbank, Professor Benedict Oramah, the 500-bed AMCE would be a key player for Africa in fighting the next pandemic, having learnt some lessons from the continent’s fight to curb COVID-19. As a training, educational, medical and research facility, Oramah added, “medical research professionals from across the continent will be able to meet, exchange ideas and support Africa to implement its health agenda and provide quality health care, which would be accessible and affordable to all Africans.” The facility will provide services in such areas as cardiology, haematology, and oncology.
We need interventions like this in Nigeria, which is one of the countries with the lowest life expectancy in the world. This low life expectancy is the consequence of Nigeria’s poor health care system which the Health System Sustainability index report launched by the FutureProofing Healthcare initiative recently ranked as the fourth worst in Africa.
Regrettably, we have lost many best medical hands to brain drain. This is despite the billions of dollars spent by African countries to train these doctors. Out of about 80,000 doctors registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, only about 35,000 are practising in Nigeria. Over 4,000 others practise in the USA. Many others have migrated to some other countries like Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Recently, Saudi Arabia, in partnership with some recruitment consultants, came to recruit medical consultants and specialists from Nigeria. This is not the first time the Saudi health ministry would be conducting such exercise. In March 2019, it did similar recruitment in Abuja and Lagos.
The situation has led to a poor doctor-patient ratio in Nigeria which currently stands at about 1:5,000 as against the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of 1:600. Also, the annual health care threshold per person in the US is said to be $10,000, while in Nigeria, it is just $6.
The frequent conflicts between resident doctors on one hand, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) on the other and the government over working conditions do not help matters. Some of the demands of the doctors include, among others, life insurance or death-in-service benefit for their families, improving their hazard allowances, giving them adequate personal protective equipment and payment of arrears owed them in federal and state tertiary health institutions.
Poor funding of the health sector is the cause of this problem. On the average, less than five per cent of the country’s budget is allocated to the sector. This is far below the 15 per cent of the annual budget which African countries agreed upon in Abuja in 2001. Last year, the Federal Government even decided to effect over 40 per cent cut in health care spending. This underfunding has led to lack of major health facilities. Consequently, many Nigerians lost their lives to COVID-19 because they could not fly out to treat their ailments due to the lockdown in many countries. This year though, the funding slightly improved with N547 billion ($1.07 billion) amounting to seven per cent of the entire budget.
We commend the Afreximbank for its worthwhile intervention. It will help to retain some of our medical experts in Nigeria. Government should give maximum support to the centre because it will also boost its job creation drive. The huge investment is going to be a referral centre in Africa. We need such medical intervention that is geared towards handling non-communicable diseases now more than ever before.
We call for a speedy and transparent execution of the project. When it becomes operational, it will help curb medical tourism, which cost the continent about $7bn annually. It will also attract many patients from African countries to Nigeria and encourage intra-African medical tourism. No doubt, if our health institutions are equipped to world-class standards, our President and other wealthy Nigerians will not need to travel abroad for medical treatment.