Amuwo Odofin MCC seeks expansion of facility for improved healthcare services

The Medical Director of Amuwo Odofin Maternal and Child Centre, Dr Ayodapo Soyinka has appealed to the government to look into the challenges facing the medical facility.

He said the maternal and child centre has been experiencing challenges in the area of power, security, space, referrals of patients for tertiary care treatment in sister hospitals, inadequate personnel and lack of utility vehicles among others.

Dr Ayodapo, who stated this during the second general stakeholders meeting of Amuwo Odofin said, the medical centre, which provides qualitative and unparralled maternal and child cost effective services needs improvement and expansion of the facility.

He said, though, the centre, which is set up to serve the public, has benefited from the Lagos state government’s provision of several medical gadgets for government hospitals to improve maternal and child services, the medical structure needs to be expanded to contain the number of patients who visit for treatment on a daily basis to reduce the patient waiting time.

“The challenges, like any other health institution is space, it is the only stand alone MCC and we have just one structure, inside that structure you have both clinical and nonclinical staff and that puts a lot of choke on the clinical activities, this makes it difficult to have clinical expansion,” he said.

The Medical Director said an average of 17, 000 services are delivered monthly, as the centre currently attends to about 2200 antenatal patients, 4400 paediatrics and about 240 deliveries monthly, which calls for government’s urgent attention to resolve the issue.

Also speaking at the meeting the Chairman, Amuwo Odofin Local Government Council, Comrade Valentine Buraimoh, reiterated his council’s commitment towards maternal and child care in the community, just as he pledged to donate another incubator to the medical centre.

“We want to increase the survival rate of the premature babies that are being given birth to in this community on a daily basis at our mother and child care unit and we believe that donating the incubators will help us to achieve the goal and reduce child mortality’’ he said.

He said there is need for concerted efforts to contribute towards improving and supporting the health ministry to enable people at the grassroots access free medical health care and facilities.

Buraimoh, further pledge to provide free First Aid kits to primary schools in the area, noting that pupils play a lot and are prone to injuries, as prompt response to treating the injuries would help prevent infections.