The Chief Medical Director, Prof.
Temitope Alonge, has said that the University College Hospital, Ibadan,
Oyo State has fulfilled its mandate to train the best specialist doctors
and health professionals in Nigeria.
Alonge spoke on the various achievements
of the teaching hospital during a walk organised as part of the
activities to celebrate its 60th anniversary in Ibadan on Monday.
The CMD also said the hospital was set
to improve on its achievements and reverse medical tourism in the areas
of neurosurgery, nuclear medicine, cardiac and orthopaedic surgery so as
to encourage more Nigerians and Africans to seek medical treatment at
the premier hospital.
Wondering why many people still prefer
to travel abroad for treatment, even as a majority of the medical
services offered in foreign hospitals are available in the country, he
urged Nigerians to trust their local hospitals.
“We must know that many Africans are now
coming to Nigeria for surgery and treatment. So, medical tourism is not
only outward. We have attended to presidents, kings, ambassadors,
technocrats and diplomats from different parts of Africa in the UCH. I
vividly remember that the father of a former President of Gambia had
treatment here.
“People have come from the Gambia,
Sierra Leone for treatment in the UCH. People are going to foreign
hospitals not because Nigerian hospitals don’t have the facilities or
the expertise, but because travelling abroad is an ego thing for them.
Some Nigerians travel abroad because they get estacodes. I once offered
to do a surgery that won’t take me more than 35 minutes, but the patient
opted to travel abroad for it.
“We must also let Nigerians know that
these people are not going to public hospitals for treatment. Instead,
they go to private hospitals abroad because it used to take 18 months to
get an appointment for knee replacement in the public hospital where I
worked in the UK.
“There is also the lack of information
because we are not allowed to advertise our services but that we are
working on.” Alonge explained.
According to him, the hospital has
beefed up its expertise in nuclear medicine, palliative, geriatric care
and was now performing awake craniology, a type of brain surgery
whereby the patient is awake.
He added that the UCH doctors were
consolidating and acquiring more surgical skills and training in the
area of foetal surgery to reduce the number of newborn babies dying of
congenital defects or diseases.
“We want to start operating on fetuses
that will not survive outside the womb. We have the equipment and
expertise in our radiology department to pick these conditions early.
So, we don’t have to wait till the baby is born before we operate. We
can reduce the number of new-borns dying.”
Also, speaking at the event, the
Chairman, UCH 60th Anniversary Committee, Prof. Ope Adekunle, said the
hospital would be leveraging on its relationship with philanthropists,
traditional rulers and its alumni to establish a cancer centre at UCH.
The professor said it was shameful that Nigeria, with a population of over 170 million, did not have a designated cancer centre.
Adekunle said, “India has over 200
cancer centres and we cannot boast one. We are calling on
philanthropists to contribute towards this initiative. We will also
enlist the help of traditional rulers to provide some funds and
facilities which would be named after them. We hope they will help us to
realise the projects lined up to commemorate UCH at 60 years.”
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