By Edwina Ogiri
Abuja
Nigerian-Turkish Nizamiye Hospital yesterday said Nigerians no longer needed to travel abroad for medical treatment as it can handle almost all the cases.
Its Medical Director, Dr. Mustafa Ahsen, revealed this while fielding questions from pressmen during an interview session in Abuja.
He said: “Why travel abroad for checkup, surgery and other health reasons, when we can handle them all here?
“You are sick and you want to travel abroad for treatment. When you are travelling, you get sicker. There are a lot of instances when people die before they could arrive overseas for treatment. Even in recent time we all heard of a very eminent public figure that died en route foreign hospital.
“And financially, it’s a burden. Here you only concern yourself with fees for treatment. But when you travel, you will pay for flight ticket and visa, you will pay for hotel bills and all that. So we are here to save that money and that life.”
It would be recalled that President Goodluck Jonathan had, during the commissioning of the hospital, said the facilities at the health centre would stop people from traveling abroad for treatment.
“No doubt, the state-of-the-art medical diagnostic equipment (at
Nigerian-Turkish Hospital) will meet the needs of those who may have had to travel outside this country,” Jonathan said.
“At least, this hospital will stop some.”