Speaking at the 32nd Afreximbank Annual Meetings in Abuja on Thursday, June 26, the Bank’s Export Development Managing Director, Mrs Oluranti Doherty, described the situation as a major setback for local investment.
“We had our member countries losing a lot of foreign exchange to medical tourism,” she said. “We just talked about Nigeria, where our medical tourism annually is about $1.1bn.
“The entire continent is about $7bn just because we can’t help ourselves when we come up with chronic diseases. That’s money that’s going to other economies, building their institutions.”
Doherty stressed that the consistent outflow of funds for treatment abroad represents missed opportunities to develop healthcare infrastructure and strengthen the broader economy.
