Why Nigerians should stop travelling to India for medical treatment

Posted by Felix Okoli on Monday February 29, 2016 at 23:26:21:

There are now a growing number of Nigerians who prefer travelling abroad for medical treatment and for most of them, it seems that India is their preferred choice of destination. Some of them go for treatment related to prostate cancer, breast cancer, heart surgery and other life threatening health issues because they are not so confident of hospitals in Nigeria.

The truth is that there are no guarantees that their treatment will even be successful in India and there has been many reported cases of Nigerian patients who have died in Indian hospitals due to the negligence of lack of professionalism of Indian Doctors.

For those Nigerians who have been killed or died negligently, it would have been better that they died in Nigeria while trying to save their life rather than have no guarantees for survival even after spending millions of Naira just to get treatment from Doctors they expected to be better than local Doctors.

I don't know how many Nigerians who really know of their loved ones or friend that have gone to India and had a successful medical treatment. It may be exciting to go to another country to relax and have access to a health sector that seems better organized than what obtains in Nigeria but the truth is that the Indian Doctors don't really care much about your life as much as they care about your money. A Nigerian Doctor would have more regard for your life and it would even be better to take traditional medicine for treatment rather than take treatment from an Indian hospital when there is little or no guarantee for your survival.

There is a story of a young girl whose parents sent her to an Indian hospital just for a bone adjustment surgery and this was a healthy girl who just wanted to do a bit of cosmetic surgery only for Doctors to give her a treatment that took her life. There is another case of a man who had been going to India for prostate cancer treatment only to go there for one last time looking healthy for a minor surgery and they discharged him 2 weeks later saying his case had worsened only for the man to return to Nigeria and die after getting swollen up as a result of kidney failure.

Going to India is a not a guarantee that you or your loved ones will get the best treatment because when something tragic happens to the Nigerian patient, it can be hard to sue to hospital as a medical tourist. It is better to just take your treatment in Nigeria and if you have more funds, you can always choose to go to better hospitals in the UK or USA where they have better standards of operation and better value for your life.

For Nigerians still going to India for medical tourism, it is really a big risk as it's even better to stay in Nigeria and take local medicine rather than go there because you don't trust Nigerian doctors or hospital enough.

Sure, they may be a few Nigerians who have had successful treatment in India and come back alive but I've heard of many other stories of people who died because they sought for medical treatment there.

I'm just saying that if you really want to travel out of Nigeria to a foreign country for treatment, don't settle for India when you can go to the USA, UK or Canada. Some local traditional medicine may even be more effective for your case than the treatment you would eventually get from India.