'Ilorin General Hospital to get Spine Neuro-surgical Dept, others soon
- Mosunmola Ayobami
- Aug 9, 2015
- 2 min read
The Chief Medical Director, Ilorin General Hospital, Dr Abdulfatai Olokooba has disclosed that plans are on to make available some departments of tertiary health facility in the institution, which Nigerians travelled abroad to access.
The department, which includes Spine Neuro-surgical, Paediatrics surgery and Physiotherapy departments among others, would be done with the partnership of Nigerian specialists who resides in United States of America in order to make such surgery more affordable within a short kilometre.
Olokoba made this disclosure while speaking with Pilot Health in his office recently.
"There are still potential areas that we hope very soon will unveil, like a Neuro-surgical unit. There is a proposal being considered where Nigerians who are well endowed but are residents in the USA and specialists in the area of Spine surgery (as you know, spinal surgery is a surgery for which Nigerians travel abroad to seek healthcare), there is a proposal for them to partner with General Hospital Ilorin and we have created a whole section of ward in the hospital to accommodate them whenever they chose to actualise the project.
“So that is one potential project that could come up, which is spine Neurosurgical service"he said.
"He added, “other potential areas that we also want to expand are Paediatrics surgery, physiotherapy and some other areas can come on stream. Like I said, we are expanding our services".
The CMD noted that all the centres will bring better healthcare to Kwarans at affordable prices such that in a way, they would not need to travel abroad for such services.
“Another area of service we are trying to expand is admission facility; you know that we have different clients who may want a hotel style admission facility, there is also the plans to have high earning patients ward as well as super VIP wards in conjunction with Harmony Holdings Limited.
The facility will be similar to what you will find in any first class hospital in Dubai and all that. In fact, the idea came from there and the facility will be like any five star hotel; but you know all of these are very beautiful plans, we hope it will materialise in the nearest future", Olokoba disclosed.
He urged well-meaning Nigerians, corporate bodies and philanthropists to complement government's effort by donating equipment and erect structures for the health institution.
"Funding of health care should not be left to government alone, those who are well endowed should partner with government in the delivery of health care services. For example, we have had instances of people who are financially endowed in the society coming to build structures and donating equipment for hospitals as philanthropists and it helps to complement government's effort.
It is not just individuals, corporate organisations too can do that in form of corporate social responsibility, nothing stops big industries, industrial players, banks and other manufacturing companies lending helping hands in our hospitals, they will be most welcome", he said.
To this end, he said if all these could be actaualised, it would reduce the number of people and amount used in embarking on medical tourism.
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