Less than two weeks after assuming office as Governor of Lagos State, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu sent no less than 825 health workers in the state on extensive training and skills development. This was in June 2019.
These trainings, according to the newly sworn-in governor, were to foster qualitative health care service delivery and increase patients’ utilisation of efficient and affordable health services in all state-owned health facilities.
Since then, Sanwo-Olu has inspired and driven impressive investments in healthcare within the state and has continued to amplify the intention of his administration to continue to review strategies, and policies geared towards delivering qualitative healthcare for Lagosians.
At the core of healthcare delivery is the gathering, deciphering and sharing information. Information is exchanged between patients and doctors, doctors and doctors, doctors and pharmacists, and so forth. This flow of facts, figures, and experiences ultimately results in the care of a patient.
This is the rationale behind the innovative Lagos State Smart Health Information Platform (SHIP), a sustainable Smart Health Information Platform that connects and strengthens linkages between primary, secondary and tertiary facilities so as to deliver better, faster and smarter healthcare.
In the state’s pioneering nature and to emphasize the importance of the health sector in securing the economic and socio-cultural well-being of the state, Mr. Governor continues to spearhead conversations and actions to leverage technological development to building a smart health information platform for the state’s health sector.
This approach has especially empowered and enabled the private sector to contribute significantly to the health industry within the state and the country at large.
We have now seen a significant increase in private investment, international interest and investment, and more importantly, actionable solutions that have proven beneficial now more than ever as we battle a global pandemic. Case in point is the Gbagada Health Centre, which many analysts now refer to the model hospital with world-class capacity.
Sanwo-Olu in a recent comment concerning the coronavirus pandemic opines that in tackling the issues we face with our health system, it has become obvious that there must be a handshake between traditional and non-traditional players in the health industry.
“The non-traditional players, especially from the technology and digital space, have the potential to significantly support and amplify the efforts of the specialists and practitioners in the health sector. Digital health solution disruptors are clearly showing us the myriad of ways they can add value to an industry that needs all the help it can get,” he said.
By creating an enabling environment for entrepreneurs, start-ups and private investors in the health industry to thrive, the state has seen such a remarkable networking between public and private sector to tackle significant issues facing healthcare delivery in the state and beyond.
Ladi Ibidun, a practitioner in the state’s ministry of health while speaking about the benefit of this move, lauded Sanwo-Olu’s foresight and innovative steps and early interest and investments in the health sector as being a timely gatekeeper that helped to significantly manage the pandemic in the state and country, emphasizing the fact that as a state.
“We should not have to wait for a pandemic to inform us of the need to improve healthcare service and administration, especially public health systems and care”, Ibidun said.
