Nigeria’s dismal cancer survival rate could soon experience an upward move as new radiation machines that can deliver reliable treatment get installed and ready for use at various centres in the country. The new machines will overcome the challenge of frequent breakdown being experienced at cancer treatment centres, according to Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), which funding their acquisition.
Already, the Oncology department at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) Idi- Araba has received $11million (N3.96 billion) worth of sophisticated equipment and renovation from NSIA, the agency has said. Other locations where similar projects are to be commissioned are Kano and Umuahia.
“The specialised project is awarded as part of a programme to promote Private- Public Partnership and collaboration in funding cancer care in order to advance cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care,” Titilope Olubiyi, head of corporate communication at NSIA, said by phone.
Access to radiotherapy machines has been a challenge to treat over 100,000 cancer patients yearly in the country and the vast majority of Nigerians of about 80, 000 who suffer from the disease can’t afford it die each year due to the deplorable attention paid on the health sector.
Over the past decade, LUTH has been struggling with the radiotherapy machine which breaks down often as a result of overuse and is currently without a functional machine. This recent project by NSIA is a push for national action to seek more collaboration “end cancer as we know it.”
Findings by BusinessDay show that the average cost of a radiotherapy machine is between $1.5 million and $2 million, depending on the size and capacity.
“It is going to be very supportive,” said Habeebu Muhammed, Head of Department Oncology. He described the radiation machines as “state-of-the-art,” noting that two out of the four had been installed.
“By the time the project is completed, the facility will be able to treat at least more than 500 patients in a month with a complete session, but in a daily treatment we could have about 300 patients who can undergo treatment but not a complete session because it takes about a month to complete a session of treatment,” he said.
Uche Orji, managing director and CEO of NSIA, said recently on AriseTV that the commissioning of the projects is the 13th phase across Nigeria’s healthcare. “What we are doing is not social responsibility but commercial investment. So we are expecting to make about 8-12 percent profit in healthcare,” Orji explained. He added that at the moment, the facilities are owned by NSIA but that in a period of seven years NSIA would have earned its return on investment, “and over time transfer it to LUTH.”
Cancer is expected to kill more than 70, 327 people in Nigeria, and an estimated 115,950 new cases are predicted yearly according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
However, on Friday January 18 during an inspection of the new Cancer Treatment Centre, by the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, said that the purpose of investing in the facility is to treat more people in the country, rather than they travelling out for treatment.
“LUTH has a first-class of Biomedical Centre which we planned to support other Centre’s. I know the institute will manage the machine properly which means abandoned and broken equipment will be a thing of the past,” he said.
According to the minister, there will also be long-time maintenance contract that will enable us to manage the cancer machine. “The cancer treatment Centre is almost ready, so by February, this Centre will start operation fully for the benefit of the patients,” Adewole said.
Chris Bode, the Chief Medical Director of LUTH, said that the aim was to establish a world-class cancer treatment centre in the hospital which would help to reduce medical tourism.
“We already have the manpower, there are enough experts for cancer treatment, but we are trying to also retrain our experts on how to maintain and use the machine properly.
“Healthcare is inevitable to invest in, so I am calling on people to invest more in the healthcare system in the country,” he said.
ANTHONIA OBOKOH
