After over 30 years of practising in the UK, Dr Elebute has recently taken the bold step to return to Lagos to open an ultra-modern specialist hospital, the Marcelle Ruth Cancer Centre & Specialist Hospital. The hospital, which is wholly owned by herself and her husband, Bolaji Odunsi, a financier, was conceived and executed with the specific intention of addressing the detection and treatment of cancer and a number of other specialist conditions in an environment akin to a top private hospital in Europe or North America.
As the daughter of Professors of Surgery and Medicine and pioneers in Nigerian medical affairs (education – LUTH; private healthcare – Lagoon Hospital; HMO – Hygeia), Elebute is looking to make her own mark in the Nigerian healthcare space.
As CEO, Elebute leads a team of over 40 staff who work with first class equipment and whose mantra is ‘The best possible patient experience’. The hospital is equipped with the latest technology including a Varian TrueBeam linear accelerator, the most advanced radiotherapy machine available in the world, the first in West Africa and the 5th in the whole of Africa.
Modupe qualified from the College of Medicine, University of Lagos in 1986, after which she completed postgraduate training in Internal Medicine and Haemato-Oncology at centres of excellence in London, including St Bartholomew’s Hospital, St George’s Hospital and The Royal Marsden. She received a prestigious fellowship from the Leukaemia Research Fund and gained a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from the University of London for her ground-breaking work.
Growing up
I had a really wonderful childhood. I was brought up in the home of two academic professors. My dad was a Professor of Surgery; my mother is a professor of Physiology. Both of them at that time, worked at the College of Medicine in the University of Lagos. Our home was all about medicine most of the time. I’m one of four children. I have an older brother and two younger sisters. We went to the university staff school, so we grew with children whose parents also worked in the same environment, and looking back, I think it’s quite special because it was like our own community.
Why Oncology?
I went to the UK to do my post-graduate training, did my Internal Medicine but still felt I really wanted to do Hematology, so I had to qualify and go back and train in hematology and ended up on rotation. In the UK, your training is done on a rotation of different hospitals. I spent about four years at the Royal Master Hospital which is the best hospital for cancer generally, and I really enjoyed my time there. Then I became a consultant subsequently.
There has been so much change growing up and thinking cancer is a life sentence, the truth is, if detected early, there is hope for survival.
Read Also: Post-COVID-19: WHO urges countries to invest in health facilities
What point did you make up your mind to be a doctor, and why the specialty?
I’m one of four children and both our parents were doctors. I was the only one who actually wanted to do medicine. My parents didn’t impress upon us that they wanted us to do medicine. It was only later on in my life that they went on to do private medical care, maybe it would have made a difference if they had done it earlier, but at the time they were working in the University, they made it very clear that they wanted us to do what we wanted to do. There was no pressure at all to want to do medicine. But when I’m teaching, talking to my staff now, I feel that I’m an ‘outlier’. The reason is, although my parents are doctors and professors, my father was the eldest of four children and three of them did medicine. But my earliest memory of medicine, of thinking ‘oh, I want to be able to fix that,’ was when I was four. My father took me to the hospital to visit his mother who later on, I realized had diabetes and she had her leg amputated due to complications of diabetes.
I remember seeing her in a bed by the side of the widow and thinking, when I grow up, I want to be able to look after grandma. I want to make sure I fix her leg. From then on, internally for me, medicine was always something I wanted to do.
I still feel very blessed that I was able to do medicine because I’ve met people along the way who wanted to do medicine but didn’t get into medical school. I went to medical school in Lagos—the College of Medicine in Lagos. Combining the science with the clinical side of medicine is super special.
Marcelle Ruth Cancer Centre & Specialist Hospital
We spent maybe two and half to three years looking at the sites before we found the one that we did. My husband had a dream about that site that we would find it in Victoria Island, and we found that site but we looked at about 15 sites, flying in and out. The fact that we found it was one thing, the other thing was also having an incredible husband who, once he clicked with the vision, rolled with it.
The two of us don’t do anything unless we’re going to do it well. We had to do it with a patient’s journey in mind, to make sure that it was comfortable for patients, that even when they walk in through the door, the healing already starts.
Every day, when I walk into the place, I’m still amazed that we managed to pull it off. In the Nigerian environment, everything is so expensive and imported, and taking shortcuts is not a big deal, but my husband has a mantra that there is nothing like the ‘Nigerian factor’ in his book. You do what you want to do in the standards you want to do it, you work at it, and you get the results.
The younger people who feel like they want to achieve these things, of course there are some amazing stories particularly with the social media and Fintech who make money quickly, but even when people think that it was just luck, when you go back and ask them, you’ll find out that the hours they’ve spent and invested either in the research of what they wanted to do, or implementation, there’s nothing like “It was just luck or just being there at the right time”. That right time comes with the amount of effort, with the discipline, focus and with purpose. That’s how we got to do what we did.
We are a one-stop shop providing high quality medicine.
Why the name Marcelle Ruth?
She was my mother-in-law, my husband’s mother who was English but actually came to Nigeria to teach. She taught History at Igbobi College, and subsequently became vice principal of Igbobi.
She was Vice-Principal, Igbobi College, Lagos and Principal, Government Girls’ College, Agege.
When the government set up the Government Girls School, she became the first principal of Government College. So, she’s very entrenched in the Nigerian society. Unfortunately, she died of complications of breast cancer in 1999. So, it’s in memory of her.
We’ve just named the surgical suite after my dad. The surgical suites are called Professor Emmanuel Adeyemo Elebute Surgical Suites.
The Marcelle Ruth Cancer Centre and Specialist Hospital has opened to provide world-class, one-stop services for the comprehensive treatment of cancer and other specialist conditions.
At the purpose-built premises on Victoria Island, Lagos, the team offers the highest standards of care with the latest treatments and technology, in comfortable surroundings designed to promote healing.
The facility includes:
• Radiotherapy centre with Varian TrueBeam linear accelerator
• Imaging centre with 64-slice CT simulator, 3-D mammogram, 3-D ultrasound and digital X-Ray
• 2 modular operating theatres
• 8-bed Day Unit infusion and chemotherapy suite
• 15 en-suite in-patient rooms
• Automated laboratory service and blood bank
• In-house Oncology and General Pharmacy
Cases at the Centre
We’ve had a lot of cancer patents: lung, breast, prostate, different types of cancers. We had a lot of hematological problems. We’ve had leukemia which I thought was quite rare here, we’ve had the rarest form of leukemia in an adult. We’ve had bone marrow failure syndromes, sickle cell patients, the complex ones. So, those are the types of cases that we’ve seen.
We have a lot of work to do to rebuild the trust that patients have in the healthcare system of Nigeria. It’s a problem. Even when people come to the hospital, and you do all the tests, they still want to check with the doctor in The UK, which is fine. But sometimes, going off to get all that advise, with cancer, time is of the essence. Sometimes, they don’t come back for quite a while and then when they come back in some cases, it spreads. It’s so frustrating.
That is the only thing I pray for, that people will trust the system more. Even if they’re having a second opinion, they should still continue on the journey with the treatment so that we can make a difference.
I’m very proud to say that we’re Nigerian owned, Nigerian led, Nigerian staffed. Most of the staff have worked abroad, but quite a few also are people who followed their professions within Nigeria. We work very closely as a team.
What makes your centre tick?
We’re different first because I’m in the building. After 30 years in the UK, I am here to offer my service. My director of nursing worked in the US for more than 30 years before she came back and she’s training nurses.
We have brought these skill sets back and we’re in the building on a daily basis. We’re the ones seeing the patients alongside all the other staff.
We are super excited that we managed to get amazing key pieces of equipment into the country, by this I mean the Linear Accelerator machine. We should have about 2,000 of them in Nigeria but we have about five or six in the country. So, there’s a huge gap and we’re super excited to have brought one in.
Getting your staff
We’re not just selling something, this is life, we care. There’s a reason why Medicine is 6 years in the university and not three. So, very early on in my journey, I contacted a few people who had the skill set. They were not in Nigeria. I was thinking about what I wanted to do and began to think about those people who had those skill sets. Once I told them what I wanted to do, they bought into it and then together, we decided to build a team locally.
How does it make you feel that you are part of those proffering solution to Nigeria’s health care challenges?
I feel amazing. I never really thought about the massive gap and the impact that we’ve had on people that we’re looking after. We started admitting patients three days from when we opened. We’ve already refurbished some of the rooms so that we have more beds because we need them. We’ve had some of the most complex cases that I’ve ever seen in a long time.
There are various challenges and it is tasking me in a lot of ways because, for instance, we have to support our patients with blood transfusion which is not easily achievable.
Nevertheless, I’m super excited to be back, to be making such a difference. When I was coming to Lagos, I knew of breast cancer in women, ovarian and prostate for men but my last three cases of cancer have been lung cancers in women in their 40s and 50s.
The number of people you talk to and ask if anyone in their family has cancer, and they respond affirmative, is alarming. When I was in the UK, usually, out of 20 patients, maybe one or two will say they have in the family but in Nigeria, out of 20, only two don’t have a family history, most have family members who currently have or have had cancer.
The other big thing for me is follow-up. It is very important. I say to my clients, you have to come back for follow-up because some people do not understand the importance of follow-up. I’ve had two patients in the last nine months with raised PSA which is one of the markers you can pick up if the person might have prostate cancer.
When I asked one of them of any family history, of course his father has had prostate cancer, which means that he should have been told to start doing screening earlier but nobody ever told him.
Another thing is, he had gone to have a wellness check in South Africa but did not follow-up. The thing is, when we travel abroad for all these checks, we don’t necessarily have the right follow up because we don’t live there.
At the Centre, we have14 days for a follow up visit, where we sit down for half an hour and share with you extensively on all you need to know.
On Vaccination against COVID-19
I definitely think we should be vaccinated. If you look at the figures, the numbers in the new infections since people started the vaccination programme has gone down. The number of deaths has gone down significantly. There’s a significant reduction in COVID-19 as the vaccination is going on around the world. One thing I will say is, COVID is real.
It did cause a lot of harm and deaths. But with the vaccination programme, it has reduced. It doesn’t matter which specific brand of vaccine it is. There are a lot of political stories about vaccines, but a vaccine is better than none.
How can the state of health care be resuscitated in Nigeria?
I think we can do it. If you look at a number of the things that work right in the country, if you look at banking, telecoms, technology, all in the private sector, we’re playing in the same levels internationally. I think that the private sector is going to have to step up.
I’m not saying it’s easy but I think we’re going to have to be part of the story. There has been such a huge drain on health care personnel leaving the country to go and work abroad. So, that’s the other part of the story.
In health, there are two parts of the story. One is the infrastructure, the other one is the skills. There needs to be a rebuilding on reputation about the standard of care. There is also the need to bring together a team who has the skills, who are passionate about medicine, who don’t cut corners, who really want to make a difference in looking after patients.
That, for instance, is what my team is about. And I think it’s the same with education because, that’s another big issue we have as a country. So, I think it’s time for us to begin to try and enthuse people, nothing in life is easy, but we can do this. We do have to come back to the basic which is education and education is key for our kids. It’s not okay for us to be saying that people have to travel abroad to receive healthcare, we need to build ours.
If COVID-19 hasn’t taught us anything else, it has taught us that you cannot just hop on that plane and go somewhere else. Also, when the borders are closed, we have to look inwards. Those of us who are here will also do our best to encourage people who want to come back.
The other way is to beg the medical practitioners to stay, especially these young doctors and nurses who are leaving the country by the droves. I think if we set up good centers, and we teach and show the passion about medicine, hopefully, we would be able to turn things round.
Hope for Nigeria’s health sector?
My really big hope is for everyone to have access to healthcare. For people to walk into a hospital and trust and know that they would be getting the right diagnosis and treatment with compassion. The patient is key. If we don’t treat our patients with dignity, if we don’t make sure they know that they matter, then there is a problem. In our business, the patient is at the center of care, they matter.
That’s what I would hope for. Also, I hope that people will begin to get the right diagnosis and treatment when they walk into hospitals in Nigeria. That would be my hope and prayer.
There’s a lot that can be done from the government’s point of view. Yes, public sector needs to be sorted out, but also, supporting the private sector matters. The banks should stop sitting on the fence, banking in Nigeria has to change, to just sit and say it’s 25 percent interest without actually thinking “how can we support them?” is not appropriate. We can make the changes we need in this country.
Also, we have to start paying our staff a bit better. We do a lot of teaching and training at the Centre. If you pay people a bit more differently, it goes a long way. I think those are the kinds of things we should begin to do as a nation.
There are a lot of doctors who want to come back to Nigeria. There are a lot Nigerian doctors who want to practice good medicine.
