he dialogue currently going on between the lawyers for the former strongman of Bayelsa State, Alamieyesiegha and the EFCC, about being airlifted abroad for medical treatment, has again put on center stage, the issue of overseas medical treatment for Nigerian elected public officials and their appointees. Sometime ago, the former governor, who is being tried for corruption, slumped in court for unexplained medical reasons. Since then, reports have been filtering into the public domain that he has a medical condition that is fast deteriorating. His lawyers, in their infinite wisdom, decided that he should be sent abroad for treatment, probably at the expense of Nigeria! Surprisingly, the judge presiding over the case agreed with Alamieyesiegha's lawyers and has since been hounding the EFCC to procure visa for the corruption suspect to proceed abroad.

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Nigeria must ban, as a matter of urgency, all overseas medical trips for all elected public officials and their appointees. It should be a blanket ban cutting across the executive, judiciary and the legislative arms of government and should not be restricted to just the trips financed with public money. It should include all medical trips whether paid for by the official or the government. This may infact sound draconian and undemocratic but as this article unfolds, it will become clear to the reader why this writer has gone this radical.

There are two forms of overseas medical trips that public officials embark on in Nigeria. The first type is the routine trip where they fly to choice hospitals, outside the country. During the visits, they undergo elaborate physicals, blood work and prophylactic treatments. In the absence of any "remarkable" findings that require medical intervention, doctors certify them as healthy. Subsequently, they head back home to Nigeria, satisfied that they will yet live another year to continue their unbridled assault on Nigeria's treasury.

The second type is where they travel overseas for treatment of a budding or fully developed ailment. During such visits, doctors conduct diagnostic tests, carry out medical procedures that could include surgery. The patients stay a while for recuperation before heading back home to Nigeria.

In both cases described above, the price tag is staggering! It is not just the cost of medical treatment that is involved. Air fare and cost of hotel stay for the officials, their so-called personal physicians and the retinue of staff members that accompany them on such trips, are included. Since the year 2005, or so, when the issue of banning overseas medical trips, financed with tax payer money was tinkered with, Nigerians have been hoodwinked into believing that these officials now pay for their trips. This writer does not believe it for one minute! The costs are directly or indirectly being borne by the tax-paying public!

Average life expectancy for Nigerians living in Nigeria is 55 years! This means that most Nigerians in the country will barely see their 55th birthdays. It means that the biblical average life span of three scores and ten years or 70-years, which is a promise from God himself to mankind, is fast eluding Nigeria. Contrast that with the fact that in a country like the United States, average life expectancy is more than 80 years. While environmental pollution and poor nutrition are all contributory factors in the low life expectancy in Nigeria, the main reason is the neglect of the medical sector by elected officials.

I just came back from Nigeria a few days ago. During my visit, I had the opportunity to see a few government-owned and private medical facilities in places like Lagos, Awka and of course Nnewi. I was appalled and horrified at the condition of the facilities, to say the least. We have dilapidated and poorly equipped hospitals staffed with poorly paid and hence "laid back" physicians. When people fall sick and go to the hospitals, they meet filthy and empty hospitals with little or no modern equipment for testing and diagnosis. They meet pharmacies with little or no drugs for treatment. They come face to face with doctors who have become disillusioned because of poor pay. These doctors, who have essentially abandoned their Hippocratic Oath because they say, "a hungry man is an angry man", provide substandard and questionable diagnosis and treatment. The result of all these deficiencies has been catastrophic. In one of the hospitals, because of the stench that greeted my nose, I felt the need to step outside for a while before a re-entry. Yet, this is a facility where patients are admitted and "treated" for various ailments. It also had an operating theater where patients undergo surgery! No wonder we hear of patients dying after minor medical procedures.

As I continued to look at these facilities, the question that continually greeted my mind was, "what have our elected officials been doing?" I continued to wonder why they have not found it attractive policy-making to embark on serious and sustained mass cleaning, rehabilitation and equipment of our hospitals. I continued to wonder if they ever hear the horror stories where people die in our hospitals because of the absence of equipment for diagnosis and treatment as well as the absence of drugs in our pharmacies. That was when it hit me. How could they be interested in rehabilitating our hospitals when they can easily travel abroad for medical check up and treatment? How could they think twice about building ultramodern hospitals in Nigeria when they can boast of being airlifted overseas for medical treatment whenever they want? Why would Alamieyeseigha or Obasanjo or members of congress radically change the medical sector, for good, when they and their relatives can be treated in choice hospitals abroad?

It was the reasoning above that prompted this article and its caption. I came to the conclusion that if the medical sector must be salvaged and all Nigerians given equal chance at existence, Nigeria must, as a matter of urgency, ban overseas medical trips by public officials whether financed with tax-payer money or not. People have argued that in a democracy, people should have the right to do whatever they want with their own money, including going abroad for medical treatment. This author has also been one of the protagonists of that principle. It however occurred to me that placing a ban on just publicly financed medical trips will not get the job done. The intent of the suggested blanket ban is to force our officials to use the same hospitals that the rest of Nigerians use and so witness, first hand, the stinking state of our medical sector. It is a way to force the Nigerian public official to face what the ordinary Nigerian faces daily at the hospitals. When the Nigerian public official goes to the hospital for treatment and finds out that there are no equipment for proper diagnosis or treatment of his ailment, or is confronted by disenchanted doctors milling around the hallways or sees empty pharmacies that do not have the drugs that could probably save his life, he is bound to act fast. Better yet, if he is wheeled into a filthy and substandard operating theater for surgical procedure, there is every chance that if he survives the surgery, he will begin to champion a policy for the total overhaul of the medical sector in the country. To make my point a little more forcefully, I suggest that whenever Obasanjo's routine physical is due, or any time he needs to manage his diabetes, he should be sent to Nnamdi Azikiwe Teaching Hospital in Nnewi, Anambra State. He should not be flown in by helicopter either. By the time the vehicle carrying him to the hospital has navigated the pothole laden road that leads to the Teaching Hospital, his rear end would be so sore that he will quickly initiate action to rebuild the road. I am even more convinced that by the time he is done in the hospital, he will quickly earmark a more reasonable and realistic sum of money to radically change the condition of things in that hospital and others like it around the nation. Enough of this social stratification that put elected officials on a pedestal, making it impossible for them to see the condition of things with the people they purport to serve.

The need for modern diagnostic and treatment equipment in Nigerian hospitals cannot be overemphasized. Stomach and colorectal cancers continue to kill people in droves in Nigeria. Yet, in advanced countries, procedures like colonoscopy are helping doctors detect early cases of these deadly ailments and effectively treat them. Colonoscopy is where the doctor gets a full picture of the lay of a patient's intestinal tracts via endoscope cameras and a probe inserted into the patient. They use it to detect colon polyps and excise them before they become deadly. They also use it to detect colon cancers in early stages where they could still be removed and the patient's life saved. Nigerian public officials come to places like the United States for procedures like colonoscopy and the likes. Why is it that they do not feel the need to extend this life saving opportunities to all Nigerians by looking inward? A medical facility that has the requisite equipment for detection and where doctors are paid handsomely for their services, will serve not only the average and poor Nigerian, but would be a good alternative to overseas trips for public officials. Ensuring the presence of such equipment in as many hospitals as possible will reduce concentrated demand and so bring down the cost so that the average Nigerian would also benefit.

Sometime ago, I wrote an article on Nigeriaworld titled "Dying Young in Nigeria" Part I and Part II. After the article aired, a woman emailed me about a heart-rending ordeal she had. According to her, some years back, her husband suddenly started having certain medical symptoms. Every time she went with him to the hospital, the doctor would conduct a physical and tell them that he did not find anything. The ordeal continued for a long time and the answer continued to be the same. While this lasted, she, as the person closest to her husband could tell that something was very wrong. He was losing weight and stamina, yet the doctor continued to insist that nothing was wrong. The best the doctor ever did, by way of diagnosis, was to send the man to the lab for blood work and when the result came back, he continued to insist that nothing was wrong.

At long last, they mustered some money and the man was airlifted to London. There, he was subjected to more advanced tests. The verdict was shocking! He had an advanced case of prostate cancer. This man later died, leaving a heartbroken widow and little children that are now growing up without the benefit of a father. While this may be a case of medical malpractice by an incompetent doctor, if Nigeria paid doctors well, they would attract the best minds to our hospitals and cases like the above would be few and far in between. What we see is that the best minds in medicine, in Nigeria, are leaving in droves. The remaining ones float private clinics and charge exorbitantly for their services, thereby driving away the common person. Even at that, they still fall short in diagnoses because of the absence of the right equipment.

Prostate cancer does not have to automatically lead to a man's death. If detected early and excised, men lead normal lives thereafter. Simple finger tests from a man's rear and PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) tests reveal the presence of the disease early enough. Here in the United States, notable figures like Collin Powel and John Kerry have both had the operation and are both cancer free, leading normal lives and gradually heading into the septuagenarian age bracket. Why can't Nigerians have the same benefit? If our leaders are determined, the same benefits can be replicated in the "Giant of Africa"

There was also the case of my former classmate's sister. Again, she was having certain medical symptoms a few years ago. Her hospital of choice was the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. Why not? After all, it is supposed to be one of the best since it is a Teaching Hospital. Again, as she complained to her attending physician about her symptoms, he dismissed them as nothing serious. It must be stated for the record that detecting certain types of breast cancers require the use of advanced equipment with a combination of CAT scan, mammography, radiography and the likes. By the time the diagnosis was made, the cancer had metastasized and was in its final stages.

When my friend narrated his story to me, he said something that saddened me immensely. "As my sister lay dying in our hometown, after the case was branded hopeless", he said, "I placed a call to my family home in Nigeria from Texas. After talking to my father, I asked to speak to my dying sister. She was too weak but cheered up when she was told that I was the one on the phone". My friend told me that as they talked, the last thing from her mouth to him was, "brother, please make sure that they do not bury my corpse until you return from the USA"

All the above sound like mere stories until it affects one personally. There are many more stories like the above where people died senselessly because of misdiagnosis occasioned by the absence of adequate equipment or the incompetence of mediocre or disillusioned doctors. This remains my greatest beef with Nigerian public officials and their appointees. They have not invested in the medical sector and our people are needlessly dying in droves. This has to change and if it means a radical change like banning all overseas medical trips to force them to look inwards, so be it.

Sometime in the mid eighties, during Babangida's reign, he was flown out to France for treatment of a foot ailment called radiculopathy(sp) or so! One would think that the experience would have spurred the man to pump in money into the medical sector to build ultra modern hospitals. He did not do that, instead, he pumped in the money into his personal account, building an ultra modern hilltop mansion with multiple rooms as well as acquiring buildings in South of France. This is the same man that wants to come back and rule Nigeria. Frankly, in my mind, all our past leaders should be tried for murder! They occasioned the deaths of many Nigerians through neglect and should face the type of trial that Saddam Hussein faced for gassing his own people. I do not see much difference between both crimes.

Nigeria has enough money in her coffers to build two modern hospitals in each state, from ground up. Nigeria has the money to recruit and pay the best physicians to man these hospitals. Nigeria has the money to ensure that our pharmacies are stacked with requisite drugs. Nigeria has the funds to clean up filthy medical facilities that pass for hospitals and prevent deaths occasioned by post surgery infections. Nigeria has the money to advance low-cost loans to private doctors to acquire advanced diagnostic and treatment equipment to take the load off of public hospitals. Heck, Nigeria has the money to fix the road leading into the Nnamdi Azikiwe Teaching Hospital in my hometown Nnewi. Why is this not being done if we have the money? It is simply because our public officials have an alternative they feel is better when it comes to their own health. They can run overseas and get well. If that alternative is completely taken away, they will inexorably look inwards and we will all be better for it.

I am longing for a Nigeria where my 47-year old childhood friend will tell me that he can go to the Teaching Hospital in my hometown and get all proactive medical tests recommended for people in his age bracket at very affordable cost. I look forward to the day when my former school-mates at the University of Nigeria, who studied medicine and are now in private practice in Nigeria, will tell me that with the help of low cost government loans, they have acquired requisite diagnostic and treatment medical equipment for their practices. I look forward to a Nigeria where senseless deaths occasioned by the neglect of the health sector will peter out considerably. This may never be realized unless our leaders are forced to face what the average Nigerian faces in hospitals. They will not face that unless overseas medical trip is taken away from them.

HERE I STAND