Posted on: Tue 19-03-2024

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has explained that the decision to decentralise over 300 Primary Health Facilities is part of an effort to improve healthcare delivery across the state.

He noted that the decentralization will not only enhance efficiency and improve the quality of care but also serve as a support system to general hospitals.

Speaking at the official commissioning of Atlantis Pediatric and Multi-Specialist Hospital in Lekki, Sanwo-Olu explained that the decentralization process involves upgrading facilities and training staff to provide better services.

The governor said, “We have done something that no other state has done. We’ve sort of decentralized our primary health facilities. So, we have about seven new permanent secretaries that are all medical doctors.

“What we have done is to unbundle all our PHCs so that there can be health access and turnaround in some of PHCs, and we have over 330 of them.

“We are trying to scale up so that they won’t just be consulting, they can support what we’re doing in our 30 or so general hospitals.”

Sanwo-Olu also boasted that his administration has built more hospitals in the last four years than during the previous ten years combined.

He said his administration has begun the construction of the biggest pediatric hospital in sub-Saharan Africa, adding that he is committed to improving the state infant and maternal mortality index.

“Today, we’re building what we think will be the biggest pediatric hospital in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. And it’s a project that you are all seeing, you are passing it every day. It’s a hospital that is going to be called the new Massey Children’s Hospital. It is on your left as you want to climb the Third Mainland Bridge.”

“You see the construction is going on. The parking lot and other facilities are on the tenth floor. So, the hospital itself is coming up to the tenth floor. And it will be an edifice that you will be truly proud of.

“We’re replicating the old Massey Children’s Hospital that is still in existence but is almost 100 years old right inside Lagos Island. We want to keep that name because Massey Children’s Hospital has a long history and we want to replicate it,” he explained.

The Governor also revealed that his administration is also building the biggest mental health facility

He added, “Mental health is also something people don’t talk about, but it’s real and it’s something that we need to deal with. So, we’re building almost 1,000 beds in that facility.”

PUNCH Healthwise had earlier reported that Sanwo-Olu appealed to private institutions and individuals to invest more in health financing as a way to help reduce medical tourism and brain drain.

He stressed that there is a need to create an ecosystem where Private Public Partnership would be effective in providing healthcare services to the vulnerable and the weak in society.

The Governor, however, expressed his administration’s commitment to collaborate with private investors in reducing medical tourism and brain drain through a diagnostic capacity and capability.

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