Fashola Inspects Gbagada Cardiac And Renal Centres

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Sunday said the Cardiac and Renal Centre just completed at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Annex in Gbagada in the Kosofe Local Council Development Area of the State is an investment meant to build local capacity and repatriate back the nation’s human resources in the medical sector from abroad.

Governor Fashola, who fielded questions from newsmen after an inspection of the first of its type Cardiac and Renal Centre as well as the Trauma and Burns Centre, also said the facility would help to reduce the capital flight as a result of taking victims of cardiovascular and renal complications abroad for treatment, adding that it would also enrich the economy of the state.

Pointing out that the usual practice in this country has been to ship victims of kidney and heart diseases abroad, the governor, who was conducted round the cardiac and renal centre by the Senior Project Manager, Mr. Mahdi Abbas, declared: “When you take victims of these complications abroad, you enrich other economies and we decided that we have doctors here who have the capacity, who, if given the chance, will surpass those economies.”

According to the governor, “It is not just a hospital but also, from our preventive strategy in the periodic hypertension and diabetes screening, education and advocacy programme, that is the biggest investment in itself because if that succeeds, the number of diseases and accidents you see arising from those developments will reduce.”

“It is an investment to build local capacity standing on what exists and also repatriate back the several thousands of human resources in the health sector who left out of the frustration of the unavailability of the environment in which to practice their profession,” Governor Fashola said.

He continued, “So, our target ultimately is that, yes we would keep that capacity and expertise here and see an increasing reduction in the cases that we send out”, adding however, that because in Medicine, like indeed other professions, no nation has all of the resources or all of the personnel that it needs to do certain things, there would be continuous cross referrals “where expertise lies outside this jurisdiction depending on the complication of the case.”

“We expect to see an increasing reduction in the monies and foreign exchange that we are expending outside and if there is any need for sponsorship of indigent patients, I would rather spend that money locally and let the local doctors in Nigeria earn that money than use it to empower a doctor in Europe or America,” Governor Fashola said.

Commenting on the road project being built by the contractors to service the hospital complex, Governor Fashola, who recalled that Gbagada itself is a flood plain, added that part of the complex where the Cardiac and Renal Centre now stands was raised about one metre above the level of what the land used to be because of this.

He said the old block of the Gbagada General Hospital would be demolished because of the same reason, pointing out that the building has been increasingly depressed over the years as a result of the flood in the area.

According to him, “The contractors here opted to do an insitu-concrete road that will need little maintenance if any and they have guaranteed it for forty to fifty years. But what is also instructive about that road is that it opens up traffic now effectively onto the free way so that this place can effectively assume its status as an emergency centre so that a patient coming in is not stuck in traffic.” Recalling that he lost a member of his campaign team during the 2007 political campaigns because of delayed response, Governor Fashola declared, “The difference between life and death is often the response of the emergency time and these are the things we try to respond to here now because Ikeja is full.” “So, this is going to be our annex Teaching Hospital with capacity to respond to Burns, to respond to Kidney problems, to respond to Cardiac problems and it will enrich the infrastructure here in Gbagada.

Most of the roads here have not been attended to. People from Deeper Life will also benefit from easy traffic from the inner roads in and out of Gbagada. So we have not ended in the hospital, we have provided a network of inner city roads for residents”, the governor said.

On the presence of commissioners from ministries and departments other than the health ministry, Governor Fashola declared, “It is very tempting to assume that one ministry can do it all but what we have learnt in the time we have been in government is that at every level we are inter-dependent ministerially and inter-agency wise”.

“So, yes it is the Ministry of Health that owns the project, so they are the instructing ministry for the contractors. But all of the technical things, the foundation, the sub-structure, the design is the Ministry of Works. So if he doesn’t sign off, he doesn’t get a hospital. But after all that, somebody has to pay so I say Finance come and see what we are doing with the money, so when you keep complaining that we ask for money and when we tell you to go get some more money, to go and raise taxes, this is it. The Special Duties Commissioner is also a medical doctor so everybody here is part of the team so that we know what is going on in each ministry and we share knowledge”, the governor explained.

The governor was conducted through the new road by the Field Operations Manager of Deux Project Limited, Mr. Jimmy Householder before he went on to inspect the Cardiac and Renal Centre while he also inspected the Burns and Trauma Centre.