Nigerians spent about $4.74m on foreign healthcare-related services from May 2023 to March 2025, findings by The PUNCH have shown.\n<\/p>\n
This is according to the latest Quarterly Statistical Bulletin of the Central Bank of Nigeria, obtained by our correspondent on Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n
The amount represents spending during President Bola Tinubu\u2019s first 22 months in office.\n<\/p>\n
A comparative analysis of the data shows that Nigerians spent $4.74m on medical tourism during President Tinubu\u2019s first 22 months in office, representing a 52 per cent decline from the $9.83m recorded during President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s first 22 months.<\/p>\n
The data suggest a significant reduction in foreign healthcare spending, reflecting tighter foreign exchange controls and possibly increased local treatment options.\n<\/p>\n
The report showed that from May to December 2023, spending on medical tourism totalled $2.28m.\n<\/p>\n
A breakdown of the report stated that in May, Nigerians spent $1.28m, followed by $0.31m in June.<\/p>\n
In July, spending fell sharply to $0.01m, while $0.26m was recorded in August. In September, only $0.02m was spent, $0.10m in October, $0.02m in November, and $0.28m in December. <\/p>\n
In 2024, the spending fell further, totalling $2.40m for the year. Nigerians spent $2.30m in January, while no expenditure was recorded in February. In March, $0.01m was spent, followed by $0.00m in April.\n<\/p>\n
In May, spending was $0.05m , $0.02m in June, and $0.00m in both July and August. In September, $0.01m was spent, with $0.00m recorded in October. In November, spending was $0.01m, and in December, $0.00m was recorded.\n<\/p>\n
Early 2025 figures show that spending on medical tourism remained very low. In January, Nigerians spent $0.06m, while no expenditure was recorded in February and March.\n<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, during President Buhari\u2019s first 22 months in office, from May 2015 to February 2017, Nigerians spent about $9.83m, with monthly spending ranging from $0.08m in October 2016 to a peak of $3.20m in September 2015.\n<\/p>\n
In May 2015, spending was $0.11m, $0.23m in June, $0.23m in July, $0.29m in August, and $3.20m in September. In October, $0.26m was spent, $0.33m in November, and $0.44m in December.\n<\/p>\n
In 2016, spending was $0.35m in January, $0.38m in February, $0.96m in March, $0.67m in April, $0.46m in May and June, and $0.21m in July, August, and September. In October, spending was $0.08m, $0.10m in November, and $0.13m in December.<\/p>\n
In 2017, Nigerians spent $0.18m in January and $0.34m in February.\n<\/p>\n
Recently, the Nigerian Academy of Medicine expressed concern over the high rate of medical tourism, noting that Nigerians spend more than $1bn annually on healthcare abroad, a trend it said continues to drain the nation\u2019s foreign exchange and undermine investment in local health infrastructure.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nigerians spent about $4.74m on foreign healthcare-related services from May 2023 to March 2025, findings by The PUNCH…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-239577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}