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Saturday, July 26, 2025

Many Nigerians No Longer Embark On Medical Tourism —Report

RICH Nigerians spent between 1.6 billion dollars and two bil­lion dollars each year on medical treatment abroad, putting pressure on the economy and exposing gaps in the national health system, according to data from healthcare invest­ment agencies. However, this trend is showing signs of a reversal.

For decades, the search for medical treatment abroad placed a heavy burden on Nigeria’s econ­omy and exposed long-standing weaknesses in its local healthcare infra­structure.

The report said the narrative is beginning to change. Dr. Olakunle Onakoya, Consultant Or­thopaedic and Trauma Surgeon and CEO of Ce­darcrest Hospitals, Lagos told Nairametrics that out­bound medical tourism is slowing down. According to Onakoya, true progress depends not on bans or travel restrictions but on building trust, establish­ing modern facilities and delivering globally com­petitive outcomes. He em­phasized that unlocking access to capital, smarter regulation and quality-driven policies are critical to positioning Nigeria as a thriving medical tour­ism hub.

“I think medical tour­ism is slowing down, and that slowdown is due to a number of reasons. Some are directly linked to the state of healthcare in Nige­ria, while others are more indirect. One major reason for this is affordability. For most Nigerians, travel­ling abroad for medical care isn’t as easy as it used to be. The foreign ex­change situation has made it much more expensive. What people could afford two or three years ago is now out of reach for many. So, naturally, fewer people are going abroad for healthcare at every small opportunity.

“But beyond that, I be­lieve the more important reason is that many of the services people used to travel for are now avail­able in Nigeria. And not just available; they’re be­ing offered at very high, global standards across different specialties. If you look at medical tourism in terms of push and pull fac­tors, the push being rea­sons that drive people out, and the pull being what attracts them abroad, both have reduced. The push factors are no lon­ger as strong because the care people used to seek abroad can now be found here. And the pull factors, those things that used to make foreign hospitals more attractive, have also weakened.

“Now, I may not have data, but from my experi­ence and perspective, far fewer Nigerians are trav­elling abroad for medical treatment today compared to five years ago. First, it’s important to say that it’s difficult to determine ex­actly how much is spent on medical tourism. What we often rely on are rough estimates, such as data on medical visas issued by popular destination coun­tries. But that doesn’t cap­ture the full picture, like the informal cases where people travel to accompany others or seek minor care abroad.

“That said, medical tour­ism still happens, and there are two main reasons: some are real, others imagined. The real reason is that some Nigerians have experienced poor outcomes locally. Sometimes it’s because they didn’t see the right specialist, or the facility lacked the proper diagnosis or skill level. And when out­comes aren’t optimal, word of mouth spreads quickly, which is a powerful driver of medical tourism”.

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