Cancer treatment centre: ‘LUTH has changed’

Chief Medical Director, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Prof. Chris Bode (left); former Minster of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole and Chief Executive Officer, Tanit Medical Engineering Limited, Anthony Nada, during the minister’s inspection of the new Cancer Treatment Centre at LUTH under construction.

Prof. Chris Bode, Chief Medical Director, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, says no fewer than 100 patients are being treated daily at the hospital’s Cancer treatment centre.

Bode said the hospital is looking forward to treating 300 patients per day “to tell the world that LUTH has changed.”

Bode made this known to newsmen on the sidelines of the 2019 LUTH WEEK organised by the hospital in Lagos.

The theme of the week was: “Teamwork, Integrating Passion, Purpose and People”.

President Muhammadu Buhari had on Feb. 9, 2019, inaugurated the NSIA-LUTH Advanced Cancer Treatment Centre located in LUTH.

The Cancer Treatment Centre was structured under a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement between the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and LUTH.

The project is an 11 million dollars investment for the rehabilitation, equipping and operation of an existing cancer centre co-located in LUTH, which will provide advanced radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment services.

Bode said: “We have not fully opened the centre, and by the time we finished, we will be treating more than 300 patients every day.

“We are hoping to be treating over 300 patients every day; that is a good reason to tell the world that LUTH has changed.

“It is a good achievement of proportion. LUTH no longer experienced frequent strikes by its medical personnel.”

The chief medical director said that the institution was able to achieve much ineffective healthcare delivery due to the spirit of teamwork among members of staff.

Bode said that no single component of the medical team could achieve much, no matter how good it was.

“If you are a surgeon and you have done a good surgery, the cleaner can ruin your work, if you don’t include her in your team.

“Today in LUTH, we are celebrating the teamwork we have built over the years, taking care of the teeming population,” he said.

Bode said that it was a thing of joy to behold happiness in the faces of workers in the hospital and to celebrate each other.

“Many of us had worked in the sun, people get well and they don’t come back to say thank you.

“We are making progress, we have not even reached our point yet, but we will do it if we can continue like this as a team, believing in ourselves,” he said.

Also speaking, Dr Babajide Grillo, Director of Administration in LUTH, called for synergy among health professionals.

Grillo, who was the Secretary to the Management Board of LUTH, said that the aim was to also motivate the staff members through presentation of awards to best workers in different departments and to promote teamwork.

“There has to be synergy, because when you talk about science, you talk based on universalism; you have to know what we have here, you have to know what obtains in Nigeria, outside Nigeria.

“As health professionals, you have to exchange ideas to do research, and research talks about the state of knowledge.

“When you talked about research, you have what is called the state of knowledge people want to collaborate,” he said.

Grillo said that there were doctors with fellowship who do research every day in order to get fellowship; doctors with PHD also do research.

He said that the health professionals collaborate with other health institutions in and outside Nigeria which he said was why they moved forward.

Grillo said that teamwork was important because we have different health experts playing different roles.

Commenting on the Week, he said it was to create awareness about what the hospital had done, what it was able to do and what it will do.

The director of administration said that it was also aimed at motivating staff through presentation of awards to best performing staff in different departments.