VISITING Indian Surgeons, have advised Nigeria’s Health Sector to focus attention on primary healthcare, as well as delivering healthcare system at the grassroots and tackling water borne diseases.

They recommended that 60 to 70 per cent of Nigeria’s resources should be directed to primary healthcare in order to reduce increase in malaria menace, including improving antenatal care to reduce maternal mortality in the country.

The Awareness Creation event, which held at Oriental Hotel, Lekki in Lagos, had in attendance over 60 doctors, who spoke on the advances in cardio-thoracic and vascular surgery. The programme was organised by Vedic Lifecare Hospital in collaboration with Manipal Hospital, India.

The guest speaker, Dr. Devananda Nijagal, from Manipal Hospital India, said that Vedic Lifecare Hospital is collaborating with Manipal, in order to bring quality healthcare services to Nigerian people.

Nijagal said: “Manipal Hospital is a big institution in medical education and healthcare delivery, and we receive a lot of patients from Nigeria. We discovered that medical healthcare here need to be upgraded to a better status. One of the reasons is to bring best medical practices that that is working well in India to Nigerians. It is necessary to initially generate sufficient awareness among the doctors themselves, then the doctor would transfer the same to other people.”

“Heart related diseases are major killers in the developed world, but I think that 10 years from now, Nigeria would reduce the incidences of heart disease and better manage the condition. For instance, if medical practitioners were completely up-to-date, they would be able to provide medical facilities to ensure that patients are treated properly. We look forward to providing primary healthcare services and even clinics in different areas.”

He said that educating medical professionals from different branches would help in awareness creation, whether they be gynecologists or pediatricians among other doctors.

“A month from now, we will have another awareness creation for specialist doctors as well and educating them on issues of disease diagnoses and treatment. We look at the treatment that is available and the regime in totality, ” he said.

He continued: “The present medical status in India did not build up in one day, the improvement has been on for decades. In India, majority of intelligent students definitely want to become doctors, and perhaps, engineers; this is the kind of culture that has been in India for quite some time. Those brilliant ones who read medicine went abroad to develop their careers dating back three decades now and some of them have come back. So, this kind of exposure brought development and changed India’s healthcare delivery. Today, you can see that information technology is booming in India and many people see India as one of the best places to do business.

“For over two years that I have been here, I think some Nigerian doctors are very good in healthcare delivery, at least, in the cities, but I am not aware of villages. I think the issue of waterborne disease such as cholera, and malaria have become major challenges in Nigeria. I think Nigerian government needs to combat it. They need to provide primary healthcare and safe water, so that people would not die of malaria. I think attention given to primary healthcare should be increased as well.

“Manipal hospital has over 7,000 to 10,000 patients yearly and after treatments they go back to their countries. The reason why we are in Nigeria is to ensure that those, who were treated in India would have follow-up treatment as well,” he said.

General Manager, Vedic Lifecare Hospital, Lagos, Dr. K S Chandraprakash said Vedic Hospital has partnered with Manipal Hospital India in order to provide grassroots healthcare delivery in the country.

Chandraprakash said: “We have a lot of patients traveling from Nigeria to India for medical attention and many of them come with wrong diagnoses. So, we are here to provide diagnosis centre. We even see a lot of Nigerian women traveling abroad for childbirth. It is not proper because it is not highly advanced.”