With over 41 years of experience in the healthcare industry, FUNSHO OLADIPO, founder and managing director of R-Jolad Hospital, is embarking on a journey to building a multi-specialist hospital in the country by proving inpatient and outpatient care, diagnostic testing, and surgery services.
Over the past 41 years, the hospital has grown to become one of the leading multi-specialist hospitals in the country, proving inpatient and outpatient care, diagnostic testing, and surgery services. In April 2023, the hospital opened a new facility, R-Jolad Plus, which features state-of-the-art technology and amenities aimed at the mid-class demands of patients. In this interview with TEMITAYO AYETOTO-OLADEHINDE, he discusses more about the new project.
Dr. Oladipo, you and your wife founded R-Jolad Hospital 41 years ago. Can you tell us about the initial drive for the startup, the challenges in the early days, and how you beat them?
We founded R-Jolad Hospital as our little effort towards resolving the myriad of health challenges plaguing the country’s health sector at that time. Our vision was simple enough: help people access good healthcare even if they can’t afford it. The path was not easy, but my wife and I and the team were resilient in making sure we stuck to the vision because we were so passionate about saving lives and providing quality healthcare. We have held on to this vision for the past 41 years since establishing the hospital and this led to us being referred to as the ‘people’s hospital’.
R-Jolad Hospital is often referred to as “The People’s Hospital”. Explain why this is the case and the qualities that make it so.
R-Jolad is known as the “The People’s Hospital” because the patient comes first. The goal of building the hospital from the start was to give people in the community and beyond, regardless of their financial situation, access to quality and affordable medical care. Although it may seem foolhardy, we have developed a strategy that enables us to put the needs of our patients first which is entrenched in all the services we provide within our facilities. We also remain steadfastly committed to ensuring that quality healthcare is both affordable and available to everyone.
How many beds did you start with at R-Jolad and what services did you offer?
We grew the start-up R-Jolad Hospital within the Gbagada axis from a primary health clinic with 10 beds into a 100-bed facility, catering to hundreds of patients daily and delivering an average of 3 babies per day. The services we started with were primary care with occasional secondary care. We now have 215 beds across multiple locations in Lagos and have grown into a general hospital providing services in family medicine while specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology, cardiology, endocrinology, general surgery, urology, and orthopaedics.
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What do you believe sets the hospital apart from other hospitals and what key factors make it a leader in healthcare in Nigeria?
Our focus on quality delivery over the years has ensured the sustainability of the hospital. We stand out among the best hospitals in Nigeria by continually meeting the needs of the communities and patients we serve through innovative services and technologies. Across our hospital we have specialist consultants, top-notch rapidly expanding facilities, and cutting-edge technology, we ensure that people are well taken care of despite the high cost of healthcare.
Talk to us about the post-Covid-19 initiatives at the hospital.
We recently partnered with AfyA Care, a healthcare investment platform that clearly shared our vision, which also comprised investors and managers with a lot of experience and capacity in building businesses across several industries including healthcare. That partnership has metamorphosed into a larger vision to transform healthcare in Africa. Today, we are now a hospital group that has grown from 100 beds in one location to 215 beds across multiple locations in Lagos.
We took up the initiative to deliver better services by upgrading our older facilities at Gbagada and Isolo. Last year, we opened the 50-bed R-Jolad hospital at Agege and established our first primary healthcare centre “R-Jolad Express Clinic” nearby at Bariga. To serve many patients brought in from accident scenes, we opened a 4-bed Accident and Emergency Unit in early 2022. We refurbished three operating theatres and connected them directly with medical gas and oxygen through a modern gas manifold system. We are now building an Intensive Care Unit that will serve adults and children. Lastly, in April we opened a new 30-bed facility for the R-Jolad Plus brand.
Please can you tell us more about the new R-Jolad Plus facility?
It is a purpose-built facility designed to cater to discerning customers who desire care in a more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing environment, essentially a home away from home. R-Jolad Plus offers a Wellness Clinic through which we are propagating our gospel of preventive medicine. At this new facility, we offer comfortable admission suites, two operating theatres including a laminar flow theatre for neurological, other advanced surgical procedures, and delivery rooms so we can increase the membership of the famous R-Jolad Babies Club! We also have a physiotherapy suite and an outpatient clinic where we offer access to multiple specialised services at the primary and specialist levels. Our imaging services have been recently boosted by a CT-Scan machine as well as an endoscopic suite.
How have you managed your workforce over the past four decades despite the brain drain pressure in the healthcare sector?
R-Jolad Hospital has a team comprising well-trained and experienced Consultants, Medical Officers, Residents, and House officers. Recently, the hospital was accredited to train both Residents and House officers by the postgraduate colleges and the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, MDCN, respectively. The partnership with AfyA Care has also availed our workforce to significant training and self-development, which cuts across various departments within the hospital.
What is your outlook for the Nigerian Healthcare Sector?
The future of the Nigerian Healthcare Sector looks bright because there are ongoing efforts to strengthen the industry. As a developing nation with huge human resources and opportunities for growth, there is immense potential for different stakeholders to participate in the transformation process. For example, institutional investors such as AfyA Care and private equity firms are bringing about much-needed financial resources into the industry with the view to strengthen local capacity and reverse brain drain as well as medical tourism.
For our part at R-Jolad Hospital, we remain committed as the People’s Hospital to deliver the utmost in healthcare at affordable prices while increasing accessibility.
