Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State is working to complete Nigeria’s most modern public hospital in Kaduna, the state capital, BusinessDay has learnt.
The hospital, which was initiated in 2009 during the Namadi Sambo administration in the state, is being supported by a significant $48 million fund from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) which is eager to prove that hospitals in Nigeria do not have to be where people wait to die.
The entire support from the bank will be ploughed into providing the best equipment for the hospital and already, some of the world’s leading medical equipment suppliers are being assembled to equip the facility.
The 300-bed facility located at the New Millennium City in Kaduna should be ready by the second quarter of next year, according to healthcare professionals in the city who are familiar with the ground-breaking health intervention.
When completed and fully operational, the facility would bring about significant improvement in Nigeria’s health services, especially in the northern region, provide training opportunities for doctors in the country, and help to stem the tide of medical tourism which costs Nigerians over $1bn annually, said Debo Odulana, co-founder and chief executive officer, Doctoora.
“The North especially has suffered a lot because of the lack of access to healthcare. While we focus on primary health care, there is also the need to improve tertiary health care for the benefit of Nigerians,” Odulana said.
BusinessDay gathered that the hospital is designed to have a fertility clinic, a Cath lab, physiotherapy ward, renal dialysis centre, oncology centre, intensive care unit, high care unit, operating theatre, orthopaedic ward, maternity ward, medical ward, and accident and emergency ward.
Hadiza Balarabe, Kaduna State deputy governor, who oversees the state Ministry of Health, had said the hospital was being built to have the best solutions in handling the three deadliest diseases in Nigeria – cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes.
“When completed, it would be one of the largest hospitals in Kaduna metropolis. And being a specialist hospital, oncology and research units would be incorporated for the treatment of cancer as well as research of complex health cases,” Balarabe told journalists in Kaduna shortly after an inspection tour of the hospital project site in July last year.
It would have 10 theatres that will be technology-ready and equipped with live streaming of high-resolution images digitally to any location so clinical students do not have to be inside the theatre itself to learn.
Balarabe said equipment for the hospital are already on ground as government awaits completion of the project, adding that the hospital would be handling cases that are beyond general hospitals in the state as doctors specialised in different fields would be invited to attend to patients. The doctors would be providing answers to some disease conditions that might not be commonly seen within the general hospitals, she said.
Olayinka Oladimeji, an official at the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), said a 300-bed space is quite huge and would be very useful in addressing some of the health-care problems in Nigeria.
Oladimeji said the facility would help reduce medical tourism as it plans to handle cases that take people abroad for treatment, especially cancer.
“This kind of facility will also create employment opportunities and reduce brain drain. When it is completed, Nigerians will be employed because Nigerian medical personnel are doing well outside the country. We will have medical personnel like oncologits, and it will also encourage the study of genetics,” Oladimeji said.
“It will also attract patients from other countries. Remember, once upon a time in this country in the 60’s Saudi Arabians used to seek medical care in Nigeria at the University College Hospital Ibadan, so this kind of facility can restore this kind of confidence foreigners had in our health care,” he said.
Chris Chibuike, public health expert at Nigerian Health Watch, said the facility would make a huge difference because it is targeted at those ailments that lead to medical tourism.
He, however, said beyond building the facility, it was also important to fit it with adequate equipment for it to meet the goals it is built for.
“Also beyond building it and equipping it with the right facilities, it is important to ensure that Nigerians are able to access to the facility, because it won’t make sense if you have that kind of facility and Nigerians especially those at the grassroots who have these ailments cannot access it because of the burden of cost,” he said.
BusinessDay learnt that the hospital was initially scheduled for completion in 2012, but was delayed and rescheduled for completion in 2014.
After a tour of the facility in February 2017, Muhammad Sani Abdullahi, then state commissioner for planning and budget, had tweeted that Governor Nasir el-Rufai was committed to completing the project before 2019 “for the overriding benefit of the good people of Kaduna State” and that contractors handling the project had been “remobilised to the site with work on-going”.
BusinessDay’s tour of the hospital site last weekend, however, showed that the project is still far from being completed as no contractor was spotted at the site.
Health experts and Kaduna residents have urged the state government to double its efforts in ensuring the completion of the project within the shortest possible time in the interest of the citizens.
“With the structure I see on ground, I am very optimistic that if completed, it will be of great value to the state,” said a resident who does not want to be named.
ABDULWAHEED ADUBI (Kaduna), ANTHONIA OBOKOH (Lagos) & GODSGIFT ONYEDINEFU (Abuja)
