Kidney stones, prostate surgery and urology from Nigeria

The honest arithmetic of a short procedure

Before comparing hospital figures, compare the whole journey. A urological day case or short-stay procedure in India sits alongside an in-person visa application with its listed fee and its certified bank statements, a connecting fare for you and probably for someone accompanying you (Addis Ababa, Doha, Dubai and Nairobi are the usual transit points), plus accommodation and days away from work at both ends, since the last direct Lagos–Mumbai service stopped in 2024 and there is no short version of this trip. For many simple stones and uncomplicated prostate cases that total swallows whatever difference exists between the two hospital bills. We would rather set that out for you at the consultation stage than after you have paid for a visa appointment, even though coordinating the journey is the part we are paid more to do.

When travelling does change the answer

Recurrent and complex stone disease is the clearest case: someone who has had several procedures and is still forming stones needs a metabolic workup and a plan rather than another sitting, and that combination is not equally available everywhere. Urethral stricture that has already failed one repair is another, because reconstruction is specialised work and a second attempt is harder than the first. So are very large prostates where the operation available locally is not the operation being advised, complex reconstructive surgery, and urological cancers where surgery, oncology and pathology need to be planned together rather than one after another. A remote consultation is what sorts your case into one group or the other, and it costs a consultation fee instead of a journey.

What a urology quote must say out loud

Ask for the procedure named precisely, because in urology the name carries the cost: a ureteroscopy, a percutaneous procedure for a large stone, a standard resection of the prostate and a laser enucleation are different operations with different stays. Then ask what the figure assumes: how many nights, whether a stent placement and its later removal are inside the number or billed separately, whether pre-operative culture and imaging are included, and what happens if one sitting becomes two. Stents in particular are where a package price quietly ends and a second invoice begins. We ask hospitals to itemize all of it in advance and hold the rates in writing; the hospital is paid by you, directly, against its own invoice, and our fee is a separate published line that never sits inside a clinical charge.

Why our fee exists when other agents charge you nothing

Most facilitators serving Nigeria are free to the patient, and that is exactly the point: a facilitator paid by the hospital it sends you to has a reason to send you somewhere, and that reason ends up priced into the bill you eventually pay. Many Nigerian families have dealt with that arrangement before and have good reason to be sceptical of it. We are paid by you, at published dollar prices confirmed in writing with a validity window, each step credited in full to the next; the hospital is paid by you directly on its own invoice at rates locked before you travel. Where naira has to become dollars, that happens through a Form A application at your bank, built on the hospital's invoice and admission letter, and it has been a slower road since the January 2025 foreign-exchange code. Ask your bank where it currently stands, or do what many families do and have a relative abroad settle the hospital in pounds or dollars.

Follow-up you can actually complete at home

Urological problems have a habit of returning, so much of the value of a trip lies in what you bring back from it. For stones that means the stone analysis where one was retrieved, the metabolic results, the fluid and dietary plan, and a drug regimen written so a Nigerian pharmacy can dispense it. For prostate and reconstructive surgery it means the operative note, the catheter and stent removal plan with dates attached, the measurements taken before discharge, and what to watch for. We ask for the whole pack as part of discharge along with a follow-up plan your urologist in Nigeria can pick up, and we stay reachable after you land for the questions that only occur to people once they are home again.

What to prepare

• Your CT urogram or ultrasound on disc with the report, since for stones the size and position matter far more than the diagnosis
• A record of previous procedures on the same problem: what was done, when, by which route, and what happened afterwards
• For prostate symptoms, a recent PSA result, any flow study, and the prostate size if it has ever been measured
• Recent kidney function tests and a urine culture, because infection changes what can be scheduled and when
• Any stone analysis you have ever had, which tells a urologist more about recurrence than a new scan will
• The referral letter and certified bank statements the mission asks for, gathered early so the visa file is not the thing holding you up