Kogi procures Hyperbaric Oxygen treatment chamber

Kogi State Government has procured the first hospital-based Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment (HBOT) chamber in Nigeria. With this development, Nigeria becomes the fifth country in Africa with such sophisticated medical equipment. 

A statement signed, yesterday, by the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Saka Haruna Audu, described the development as great news for Nigerian patients, who hitherto had to travel abroad for such treatments. 

He said: “Whoever has been following the trend of achievements in Kogi State health sector must have now seen the purposeful move to turn the state into a choice destination for medical tourism.

“This is only possible with much thanks to the determination of His Excellency Alh. Yahaya Bello, to revamp the state’s health sector and change the old narrative of a moribund sector that supervised substandard services.”

HBOT chamber is a very useful equipment that can help in healing people with both internal and external life-threatening injuries, as well as in such health complications as air or gas embolism, brain and sinus infections, necrotising soft tissue infections, arterial insufficiency or low blood flow in the arteries, radiation injury, especially as a result of cancer treatment, anaemia, osteomyelitis, gas gangrene, carbon monoxide poisoning, burns and skin grafts, among others. 

“HBOT is becoming increasingly popular and mostly used as adjuvant therapy to conventional treatment/management of some life-threatening conditions to minimise healing times,” the statement said.