Ensuring global best practice of diagnostic services in Nigeria

To improve the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and reduce medical tourism, Echo Lab has partnered Integrated Diagnostic Holding (IDH) to ensure global best practice of diagnostic services in Nigeria.

Chairman, Echo Lab, Dr. Benson Ayodele, said Nigerian hospitals have low diagnostics capabilities as a result of fragmented diagnostic centers thereby making healthcare inaccessible.

“Our goal is to build world class integrated diagnostics business and vastly enhance healthcare offering around the country,” he added.

Ayodele said they are determined to leverage expertise, passion for service and modern technology to deliver quick, high quality results that provide great value to customers and positively influence the health of the Society

The chairman added: “If you take the statistic today, up to 60 per cent of healthcare given to Nigerians are rendered by the private sector. We want to add to that narrative. If the private sector is doing so much due to lack of care in the public institutions, then we need to do it at the international best practice. That is what Echo Lab is doing. It is not enough to offer care, what is the quality of care? We leave to ourselves to medical diagnosis because if we get it right at that entry level of the medical ecosystem, then, obviously the treatment that individual is going to get will be much better.”

Similarly, Chief Operating Officer, Echo Lab, Dr. Abimbola Jimoh, said they are seeking to reduce medical tourism by offering wide range of tests.

“Most of our people go to India, Dubai, America, the United Kingdom for treatment and even test. We as a provider of choice are already in the works of providing fast, accurate, accessible test and report. This way, we are gaining the trust of Nigerians,” she said.

Jimoh continued: “Once Nigerians see that we have all the equipment, we have the know-how and all the things that we need to arrive at this point, we will all see that it will be beneficial to our people, even economically. You will also see that all the money that go away to other country will be retain in this country. We already have the expertise, the doctors are good, but we need more support, and this is what IDH and Echo Lab are doing.”

Business Development Consultant, IDH, Dr. Khaled Mostafa Aboul-Enein, said they were fragmented before now in Egypt and it does not give quality to the medical practice, hence in 2015, they had to do things differently and it is worked.

He continued: “We are diagnostic service provider in Egypt, Sudan, and now in Nigeria. When we chose Nigeria, the market is very similar to the Egyptian market.

We are here in Nigeria because we want to do things differently. We have a lot of qualified doctors in Nigeria, the government training Centre for scientists is better than most African countries, so we have everything we need in this country.”

Aboul-Enein added: “We do not want a situation where patients would be referred to diagnostic centers abroad, that is the reason we have a world class diagnostic center, called Echo Lab here in Nigeria. Nigeria is the biggest country in Africa and so; it will be very ridiculous to transfer patients to other country. We came into the market to avert that. We have the Know-how and the best lab scientists and doctors, together we can do it.”