LiveWell Initiative (LWI) kick-started their annual health bazaar on Wednesday, 17th April, 2013 at the Havillah Centre in Victoria Island, Lagos.
The sub-theme for day one was ‘Power and Energy: a Boost to the Ecosystem and Robust Health’. In her opening speech, Bisi Bright, CEO of LWI stated that “we are indeed glad to have everyone here to participate in this year’s bazaar. Last year, we concentrated on telecoms, banking and manufacturing sector. This time around, the three days will include oil and gas/power day, where the topic will be ‘power and energy: a boost to the eco system and robust health. The second day will be property day with topic: ‘Building in Safety and Safety in Buildings: a Learning Continuum’ and the third day will be aviation day with topic ‘Travellers’ Medicines and ‘in-flight’ Healthcare.’”
Giving his opening remarks on behalf of the commissioner of Health for Lagos State, Femi Olugbile, permanent secretary at the Lagos State Ministry of Health, said that “It is true that we have Nigerian doctors all over the world and many are not willing to come home. The case is such that we have a lot of resources but they are not used effectively. We can do much more to improve healthcare if power and energy are available. The synergy between health, power and energy is very important. The generation and utilisation of power and energy has hazards, hence the reason behind having one of the strongest cultures of safety so the topic for today ‘Power and Energy: a Boost to the Eco system and Robust Health’ is very apt.”
Taofiq Tijani, an engineer and commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources for Lagos State, speaking on the same topic revealed that “the megawatts allocated to Lagos is insufficient but Lagos State on its own is generating 40,000megawatts serving parts of Marina, Akute, Alausa and more on the way. We have also embraced solar power among others, all we are doing is to help make Lagos better and generating power is indeed very important.”
Obviously, the way to enjoy proper healthcare is the availability of resources. Shedding more light on this, Folusho Phillips, the chairman of National Economic Summit Group (NESG), stressed the need for involving public private partnership to help boost healthcare in the country. He posed the question of whether health should be seen as a business or a social service.
“After speaking with high profile entrepreneurs on investing in the health sector, three things were noted. First is that health falls into the concept of real estate, building and infrastructure, Secondly is that there is need to have the ability to manage the hospital or health facility and thirdly, the service providers, which include doctors, nurses are very crucial in the success of proper healthcare.”
“The entrepreneurs suggested that the government gets involved in putting up the structures since it requires heavy funding and they (the entrepreneurs) can get involved in getting experts who will serve as technical advisers and service providers. If there can be a synergy of public private partnership, the over 20,000 people who travel out for medical tourism from Nigeria will reduce significantly,” he concluded.
Another high point of the day was the launch of the LWI/BusinessDay Health report launch titled ‘Connecting Health to the Work Environment’ presented by the Editor, Business Intelligence Research Unit, Businessday, Anthony Osae-Brown. It shows the statistics of various health challenges faced by different classes of people in the society among others.
KEMI AJUMOBI
