Lagos—The Lagos State University Teaching Hosptal (LASUTH), Ikeja, yesterday said it aimed at reducing medical tourism to the barest minimum in 2018.

HEALTH SCREENING: Community members in Oshodi Business Unit of Ikeja Electric receiving free medical check up during the company Corporate Social Responsibility exercise in partnership with XT Monitor Ltd and a US Medical Mission Group to Nigeria in Lagos.

The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Prof. Wale Oke, made this known in an interview yesterday in Lagos.

Oke said that the hospital was consolidating on the transplants that were carried out in the hospital between 2015 and 2017.

LASUTH had performed its first kidney transplant on a 56-year-old man in November 2015, followed by another on a 38-year-old man in August 2016.

“We are consolidating on our transplants; we had three more done in 2017. We have done two cardiac surgeries and by 2018, we are hoping to capitalise to do more; with each one that we do, we get better. The aim, of course, is to reduce the era of medical tourism as much as possible.

It is better for somebody to have his or her treatment here; it is less expensive, you are at home, and so, healing is better. Relations can easily assist, but when you go abroad, you go with a relation; pay for that relation and stay in a hotel, which costs a lot, “ he said.