E-health critical to Lagos residents’ health, says Sanwo-Olu

Medical Guild seeks urgent recruitment of doctors
Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said that the state’s efforts to implement e-health must be supported by residents and stakeholders to ensure that Lagos residents are healthy.

Sanwo-Olu, who stated this while speaking at the opening ceremony of a technical e-health conference by the state, said if the e-health programme is implement, the state would have access to data that would not only allowed it to plan better for Lagos residents on health matters but would also be able to manage epidemic better.

The governor, represented by his deputy, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, also stated that with such data, the state would be able to know the impact of his projects and programmes that are health-related.

Sanwo-Olu stated that with e-health policy fully implemented in Lagos, the three layers in the healthcare system would be connected that if any patient is referred for instance from the primary healthcare system to the secondary or tertiary healthcare system, such a patient would not need to move his medical card from one centre to another.

However, the state’s Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, said the Lagos State smart health strategy would improve efficiency and result in more health for government investment in the sector.

He said though the state needs data, it needs co-ordinated data to be able to tackle epidemic adequately considering Lagos population, adding that data is also critical to driving innovation in the sector.

In another development, the Medical Guild, the association of doctors under the employment of the Lagos State Government, has urged the Lagos State Government to avert imminent crisis in the state’s health sector by expediting action on the recruitment of more doctors.

The Guild Chairman, Dr. Oluwajimi Sodipo, made the appeal at a news conference yesterday in Lagos.

Sodipo said that shortage of doctors was getting worse in the state health sector, adding that an estimated 2,650 doctors currently in the state were insufficient.