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Concerned and worried by the pressure being exerted on the Massey Street Children Hospital occasioned by the Lagos State government's free health programmes for children, the state government is to demolish the hospital and rebuild it with a new purpose built children hospital, Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris has stated.
Concerned and worried by the pressure being exerted on the Massey Street Children Hospital occasioned by the Lagos State government's free health programmes for children, the state government is to demolish the hospital and rebuild it with a new purpose built children hospital, Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris has stated.
Idris, who disclosed this in Lagos at an interactive session with medical practitioners in the public health institutions in Lagos State explained that such a drastic problem requires an equally drastic solution, adding that the emerging mega city status of Lagos makes government's decision to demolish and build another Children Hospital more compelling.
The commissioner posited that already government had embarked on the construction of five 100-bed Maternal and Child Health Complexes within the premises of Ikorodu, Isolo, Ifako-Ijaiye, Gbaja and Ajeromi General Hospitals, which he noted will be ready for use within the year, adding that all these efforts are part of the State Health Sector Reform programme to reduce the alarming under five mortality rate of 85/1000 live births and maternal mortality rate of 650/100,000 live births in Lagos State.
He noted that each of the complexes would have clinics for mothers, children, a labour ward/delivery room, a modern theatre for obstetric surgeries, wards and a neonatology unit, stressing that already works have reached advanced stages of completion at all the sites as the contract for the supply, installation and commissioning of equipment for the Complexes have been awarded.
Idris pointed out that no meaningful development can be achieved in a situation where over 70 per cent of the health budget is spent on recurrent expenditure, adding that the state government has therefore resolved to change the trend hence no fewer than 60 per cent of the state health budget will now be spent on capital expenditure in order to fast track its four-year infrastructural development plan in the health sector.
The Commissioner recalled that part of the four-year infrastructural development plan is the massive developmental programme at LASUTH, which he posited is aimed at improving the overall provision of healthcare to a level commensurate with the status of a tertiary health institution of international repute on one hand and also to ensure that LASUTH meets the accreditation requirements of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria in terms of infrastructure, equipment and human resources for the continued training of medical and dental students on the other hand.
He noted that other components of the developmental projects executed at LASUTH included, amongst others, the remodeling/rehabilitation of the infrastructure of the clinics, emergency centre (LASEMS), male and female medical/surgical wards, theatre complex, morbid anatomy department, medical research centre and the dental centre as well as the dental centre.