By Job Osazuwa, Lagos
To meet the challenge of public health care for more Nigerians, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), has taken delivery of a dialysis centre.
The “Lion Isaac Olushola Dada Dialysis Centre and Renal Institute” was donated by Lions Club and handed over to the hospital for public use.
The facility was established to honour a committed past chairman of the club, Olushola Dada, who died July 12, 2017.
Minister if Health Dr Osagie Ehanire said the project would contribute to the improvement of treatment of renal disease.
He said that with the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has created more urgency to provide and expand modern facilities that would careter for more ailing Nigerians.
The minister, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Mahmuda Mamman, commended the donors for the kind gesture, saying that it was worthy of emulation.
In her remarks, the district governor of the club, Mrs Fortune Wagbatsoma, said that Lions Club recognises the fact that LUTH needed to be supported to cope with astronomical high patient traffic.
She appealed to the public health administrators and management of LUTH to prioritise maintenance of the facility, saying that the facilities were fully equipped with cutting edge technology to guarantee positive outcome for patients.
‘On our part, you can be assured that we shall continue to support this facility while expanding our other interventions such as the on-going National Diabetes Screening Programme, which has taken us to 11 states already,’ she said.
The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of LUTH, Prof Chris Bode, said that the first dialysis centre at the hospital and in Nigeria was built 40 years ago, became grossly inadequate and dilapidated, therefore, needed urgent replacement.
He said that his joy knew no bounds when the visioner of the project, Dada, came to his office in 2017 and agreed to build the centre.
He noted the facility is the largest dialysis centre and nephrology institute in West African sub-region.
The CMD explained that 32 beds would be added to the 150 beds in the entire dialysis centres in Lagos. He described the services that would be rendered at the facility as pocket-friendly for patients.
Bode said that the centre was the biggest philanthropic donation to LUTH till date, adding that it has opened the door of challenge to large-pocketed personalities and corporate bodies, to how their dreams and commitments can be benefit those in need.
‘We are hoping to commence renal transplantation using the facility. We will be attending to over 1,000 dialysis sections a month when we fully commence. I am proud to be part of making this kind of history.
‘I commend Lions Club for using LUTH for the project. Just like Dada did, even if you are dying tomorrow, plant an apple tree today, somebody will need it for survival. He did not live to see the Promised Land, his family rose to take on the gauntlet, hand-in-hand with the Lions Club District 401-A1 to commence and finish this magnificent edifice in record time,’ the CMD stated.
The wife of late Olushola Dada, Mrs. Omolola, said that her husband was convinced that Lions Club could contribute to reducing needless deaths occasioned by paucity of functional infrastructure accessible to the common man.
‘What my husband had always desired was to serve his country and humanity and it pleases God to honour him this way. His children and I are extremely proud of all his accomplishments and today’s honour albeit posthumously. If he can see us now, I am certain he be full of smiles,’ she said.
Omolola thanked everyone who contributed their funds, time and other resources in making the completion of the project a reality.