• Nominates Justice Bello as FCT judge

• Senate passes desertification bill into law

 

REPRIEVE has come the way of an estimated 23 percent of Nigerian population that has kidney-related complaints as President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday commissioned the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) Dialysis Centre.

 

Performing the ceremony in Abuja, President Jonathan said the centre, which would provide homo-dialysis services to the military and security services in particular, brings respite to the frequent reports of kidney-related diseases in Nigeria.

 

While noting that military hospitals are supposed to be well furnished with the necessary equipment, Jonathan said military hospitals are supposed to treat even the President, his spouse and members of his immediate family, “It is expected therefore that the military hospitals should be well equipped.”

 

In his opening remarks, the Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI) Rear Admiral Gabriel Okoi, said the well furnished facility has four machines and is manned by 10 staff at inception, but “as kidney dialysis require long term man power increase, and huge sums of money to operate, it is our hope that centre would improve on its staff strength and run for 24 hours in order to provide broader services.”

 

 

He pointed out that the initiative is informed by the rising number of people expected to go through the initial kidney treatment, even as the “the World Health Organisation statistics predicted that by the year 2020 the burden of diabetes and cardiovascular disease would have been increase by 130 percent in Africa alone.

 

 

He expressed confidence that the project would be regarded “as our corporate social responsibility to our immediate community. The services to be provided would be extended to the security community in particular and the Abuja community at large.”

 

By Azimazi Momoh Jimoh, Bridget Chiedu Onochie and Karls Tsokar

The Guardian