Nigerians spent about $2.38 million on foreign healthcare-related services from January to June 2024, according to the report by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The figure is under health-related and social services of the sectoral utilisation of foreign exchange and the breakdown of the report showed that $2.3 million was spent in January; $0.00m in February; $0.01m in March; $0.00m in April; $0.05m in May; and $0.02m in June.
The report showed that foreign healthcare-related services in the first half of the year was over the figure spent in the second half of 2023 from July to December.
The report also showed an increase of $1.69m of the amount spent from January to June this year which is lower when compared to the figure for the first half of 2023, which was $3.13m,
The report by Punch newspaper on Monday recalled that President Bola Tinubu had during his inauguration of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, a healthcare expansion programme, through which 120,000 frontline health workers would be retrained, promised to reverse the trend of outbound medical tourism in Nigeria.
GIK/APA