Unfriendly attitude of health workers is one of the major reasons Nigerians seek medical care abroad — Pres. Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has named the unfriendly attitude of health workers across Nigeria as a major reason why prominent Nigerians seek medical care outside the country.

The president, who was represented by the Ministry of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said this at the official commissioning of an International Conference Certre and Telemedicine Hall and six other projects at the Federal Medical Center (FMC), Abeokuta, Ogun State.

“We still get all too often for comfort, disconcerting reports of not friendly attitudes of staff to patients, reports of unhygienic and house keeping standards that leaves something to be desired even in the presence of sophisticated equipment and well qualified doctors.

Such simple failings like this, are more frequently responsible for the loss of confidence of the end users in our health system than even the lack of equipment. They are the triggers for the distrust that will lead people to go on medical tourism.

We have a lot of work to do in that area and I want to believe that the managers of our hospitals after such laudable, fantastic infrastructure investment we now begin to pay attention, not only to improving staff harmony and welfare, but to retraining health care givers for even better professionalism that deliver service in a productive and courteous atmosphere based on the lessons we learnt from our traditional African hospitality,” he said.