Health Minister charges Nigerians to invest in sector

*As LASUTH honours kidney transplant surgeons
The Minister of Health Prof. Isaac Adewole, has charged Nigerians to invest into healthcare services to ensure reduction in numbers of Nigerians going abroad to seek for medical attention. He stressed that if individuals can invest in the healthcare the money Nigerians spend abroad would be spent here.

Adewole said Nigerians spend more than $1 million every year for seeking medical services abroad. Meanwhile, Lagos state government has pledged its commitment to ensuring adequate funding of the health sector in order to improve service delivery to the people, encourage medical personnel to do more research works and guarantee general health well being of the citizenry.

Lagos deputy governor, Dr. Idiat Oluranti Adebule disclosed this at a dinner and award ceremony organised by the Lagos State University Alumni Association in honour of its medical team that successfully carried out the first kidney transplant, and presentation of recognition award to other distinguished members.

Adewole also commended LASU, management for organising the ceremony and advised them to take students more important adding that if the students are not taken more important after graduation they would not remember the institution.

The Minster also assured the school management that federal government through the ministry of health under his leadership would continue to support the school for more developments.

According to the minister: “If individuals can invest in healthcare delivery the investors would benefit more because Nigerians spend huge money abroad for medical attention. As we know government alone cannot improve healthcare because we have limited resources, what we need is commitment among Nigerians.

“But we do our best to ensure that every Nigerians have access to medical healthcare. We support research and development to ensure that diseases generally are reduced.

“We focus more on primary healthcare to enable us get to grassroots and as we do this, we work with states governments across the 36 states of the federation to ensure successful healthcare delivery.

“Lagos State University has contributed a lot in training professionals both in healthcare and other professionals in the country. But the management needs to do more and federal government will continue to support them for developments.”

Adebule, while commending the medical team for job well done, assured that the state government was fully committed to providing an enabling environment that would help them to function more effectively and make health institutions in the state rank among the best in the world.

She added that the state government would not relent in encouraging and rewarding professionalism and productivity in all sectors of the public service, adding that advance research works in the health sector was critical to achieving government’s dream of building a reliable and functional health institution that would meet the health needs of a huge population of an emerging mega city.

The deputy governor stated that there was significant improvement in the services rendered in government health institutions across the state.as she added that government was not unmindful of some of the challenges that people faced in some government hospitals and assured that the state government would continue to invest in the health sector until those public health institutions have facilities that would help them to render best services to the people of the state.

In her words: “Our hospitals are not yet where they should be even though there is significant improvement in the services rendered in the government hospitals at present. It is the commitment of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode-led administration to fund the health sector efficiently such that our health institutions will have the best facilities that will help them to meet the health needs of the people,” she said.