Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, has been flown to a United Kingdom hospital for medical treatment following illness linked to work-related stress.
Mr Edun’s illness report, first published in Western Post and Sahara Reporters, has been confirmed by a source, who claimed that the minister had been flown to a UK hospital for “serious medical attention.”
The source told Economy Post on Tuesday night that that the minister “arrived in a UK hospital on Tuesday for the treatment of a stress-related illness,” noting that “he will be back once there are signs of improvement.”
While the actual ailment was not revealed, the source repeatedly said that “it is an ailment that has to do with stress.” Sahara Reporters had earlier attributed his current condition to ‘stroke,’ citing an alleged source as saying, “He may survive, but he can’t get back to work again.”
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Presidential officials had earlier confirmed that the minister was ill but noted that he was recuperating at his Abuja residence. The unnamed officials had dismissed that the minister had stroke or was in a hospital abroad, contradicting Sahara Reporters’ story that President Bola Tinubu was already seeking the minister’s replacement.
However, despite the claims that Mr Edun is being attended to by his doctors in Nigeria, Economy Post can now confirm that he is currently in a UK hospital receiving medical attention.
Penchant for overseas hospitals
While Mr Edun’s medical situation is an emergency, he has joined a long list of government officials who sought medical treatment abroad. Late President Muhammadu Buhari spent at least 225 days out of the country on medical trips between 2015 and 2022, The Punch reported.President Buhari made at least 10 medical trips to the UK over this period.
On February 5, 2016, eight months after assuming office, former President Buhari took his first medical trip to a London hospital and spent six days there. He had spent 50 days in London between January 23 and March 10, 2017. In March 2021, Buhari left for London again for a ‘routine medical check-up’ that ended up lasting 15 days.
Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua spent months in King Faisal Hospital in Jeddaha, Saudi Arabia, before his death in Nigeria in 2010. “The assembly left open the possibility for Yar’adua to regain power if he returned to the country in good health, but his long absence from public life and the secrecy surrounding his health sparked months of fierce speculation in the Nigerian media and constant tension between his supporters and those of the acting president,” Aljazeera reported on May 6, 2010.
Former President Olusegun Obasnjo and military president Ibrahim Babangida were also at different hospitals abroad while in power. Governors and ministers had secretly travelled abroad for medical treatment.
Nigeria loses $1.2 billion to medical tourism annually, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
State of local hospitals
As the rich and powerful travel abroad for treatment, local medical facilities, where the poor find succour, are left in ruins without drugs and doctors.
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A 2023 study showed that about 80 percent of primary health centres (PHCs) were non-functional. According to the study, “There are 34,076 PHCs in Nigeria, accounting for 85.3 per cent of total hospitals and clinics in the country. Of this number, it is estimated that only 20 percent are functional. Most of them lack the capacity to provide essential healthcare services, in addition to challenges of poor staffing, inadequate equipment, poor condition of infrastructure and a lack of essential drug supply.”
Ndingele Health Centre Delivery Room in Ebonyi State
The report, published in The Guardian Nigeria, noted: ““The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that only a quarter of PHCs have more than 25 percent of the minimum required equipment package. The capacity to provide basic emergency obstetrics services is limited to about 20 per cent of the facilities.”
