President Mahama : Africa must stop losing billions to overseas medical care
President John Dramani Mahama has called on African countries to strengthen specialised healthcare on the continent to reduce the billions of dollars lost annually through medical tourism.
According to President Mahama, African countries must invest in high-end medical facilities, specialist training and local healthcare infrastructure to enable patients to access quality treatment within Africa.
He said keeping specialised healthcare services on the continent would not only improve access to care but also help retain valuable skills, capital and consumer confidence.
“When we keep high-end specialised care on the continent, we retain skills, wealth and consumer confidence,” President Mahama said.
He was speaking at the Alamein Africa Forum in Egypt, where he highlighted efforts by countries such as Egypt and Nigeria to build stronger domestic and specialised healthcare systems.
President Mahama cited Nigeria’s African Medical Centre of Excellence in Abuja as an example of an initiative designed to provide high-end specialised medical services within Africa.
The facility, developed with support from the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and King’s College Hospital, is intended to reduce the need for Africans to travel abroad for specialised treatment.
President Mahama said Africa could no longer afford to treat healthcare purely as a social service without recognising its potential to drive investment, industrial development and job creation.
He also pointed to Egypt’s success in tackling hepatitis C as an example of how domestic pharmaceutical production and technology transfer could strengthen health systems while retaining economic value on the continent.
He said Egypt had negotiated technology transfer and developed local production capacity, enabling it to treat millions of people domestically.
For Ghana, President Mahama said his administration was pursuing measures to strengthen the country’s health system and build local capacity.
He cited the expansion of the National Health Insurance Scheme, the Free Primary Healthcare programme, the Ghana Medical Trust, and efforts to strengthen the Food and Drugs Authority and the National Vaccine Institute.
These measures, he said, formed part of efforts to move Ghana and other African countries from being predominantly consumers of health products and services to becoming producers.
President Mahama further called for the removal of regulatory and financial barriers that prevent health investments from expanding across African markets.
He said stronger collaboration among governments, investors, regulators and industry players was necessary to create a continental health ecosystem capable of producing medicines and delivering specialised healthcare within Africa.
The President said such an approach would help transform Africa’s health challenges into opportunities for investment, job creation, industrial growth and greater health sovereignty.
