‘Mother, child medical facilities will end mortality, improve UHC in Lagos’

The Wife of the Governor of Lagos State, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, has lauded the mother and child hospital as an edifice that will go a long way to improve maternal and child care health indices, as well as further help to achieve universal and comprehensive healthcare coverage in the state.

Sanwo-olu who gave the commendation at the official inauguration of the Mother and Child Hospital, Omole Centre, Ojodu, Lagos, lamented that with a population of over 22 million residents and the influx of people into the state on a daily basis, public infrastructure, including healthcare facilities and medical personnel are already overstretched.

Sanwol-olu who noted that the 2017 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey across the whole of Nigeria indicated that for every 100,000 pregnant women, 576 of them die at childbirth, said Lagos state is currently estimated at 555, while for every 1,000 live births estimated in Nigeria, 77 do not live to make it to their first birthday, as that of Lagos is 45.

The Managing Director, Mother and Child Hospital, Raphael Olarenwaju, said the aim of establishing the health facility at the location was for average Nigeria to have access to quality and affordable healthcare with modern equipment, rather than lose billions of naira to medical tourism.

He said the health facility is committed to ensuring maternal and child deaths are reduced to the barest minimum in the state.

“What other countries used to come here in time past for treatment, now we are the ones migrating to other lands. Billions of naira are being spent every year to go abroad for medical treatment. We want to change that scenario, which is why we put up this ultramodern hospital to serve Nigerians. We must change the reality now that many of our women are dying in childbirth and many of our children, who died at five years and even a year old; that is why we have opened this facility.

“Our aim is to bring succour to the sick, not only women and children, but all the members of the family – the father, elderly and children, because we know that none of us would be on earth without our mothers and we have to take care of them,” he maintained.