Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Prof. Adetokunbo Fabamwo, has said the medical facility had addressed its brain drain challenge.

During its quarterly media parley in Lagos, the CMD noted that the institution, recognising that the phenomenon mostly affects nurses and junior doctors, has through its Exit Replacement Strategy, bridged the gap, by recruiting 165 staff.

He said the programme has been helping the hospital to tackle the challenge, while maintaining its quality and effective healthcare services.

Fabamwo said: “Usually, there are two categories of staff that relocate abroad. The nurses form the larger percentage of people, who emigrate, followed by junior doctors. As soon as our staff leave, we replace them immediately to ensure there is no gap in healthcare delivery, especially as we are known for setting high standards with the upgrade of our state-of-the-art facilities for optimum care.”

He stated that this was in addition to upgrading facilities for world-class healthcare services to check medical tourism.

The CMD submitted that a 124-bed multipurpose building, housing four schools – anaesthetics technology, orthopedic cast technology, echo-cardograpgy, post-graduate nursing and other units such as family medicine, intensive care, dietetics and immunisation – would boost healthcare delivery.

He said the building adds to existing facilities to accommodate the overwhelming population seeking healthcare.

Fabamwo pointed out that upgrade of diagnostic and therapeutic facilities, as well as the bronchoscopy suite, cardiac catheterisation laboratory and endoscopic suite, whose services are economically affordable, would serve patients better across Lagos.

He said the hospital was looking forward to completing the paediatric sickle cell centre that would accommodate specialists taking care of children with sickle cell disorder and a radiotherapy unit to cater for cancer patients.

The CMD sought public-private partnership to improve healthcare in the state, adding that no government globally could adequately fund healthcare. He appealed to Nigerians to embrace health insurance schemes to lessen bills.

“Citizens should embrace the healthcare insurance module so that their out-of-pocket expenses would be significantly reduced, as they don’t have to beg people to offset their medical bills.

“People continue to come here because they have the care they need, but of the care we give, part of it is supplied by vendors and contractors, who we have to pay. The consumables are paid for, so using it to treat a patient, who ends up not paying for it, we may end up as a hospital that cannot provide care and we don’t want that,” Fabamwo clarified. (The Guardian)

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