GOVERNOR of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola on Wednesday said the cosmopolitan nature of Lagos is making it a bit difficult for the government to achieve excellent healthcare for the residents.
Fashola, who spoke during Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH)'s 50th anniversary lecture in Lagos, however, said government has put machinery in motion to ensure that Lagos residents receive excellent health care without compromise.
His assurance came as the LUTH announced its plans to commence open-heart surgery and transplant come next year. Heart transplantation, also called cardiac transplantation, is the replacement of a patient's diseased or injured heart with a healthy donor heart.
Fashola, who was represented by his Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, said: "Lagos, due to its cosmopolitan nature, seems to be suffering from the double jeopardy of both communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The disease burden is in transition from communicable diseases to NCDs even in our urban slums due to prevailing common risk factors of poor diet, alcohol, tobacco and lack of physical exercise such that both communicable diseases and NCDs are here with us."
The governor, who delivered the anniversary lecture on "Challenges of delivering health care services in a cosmopolitan city: Lagos State- a case study" said "health challenges of Lagos State are related to water, power supply, environment sanitation, violence, injury, disasters, harmful use of alcohol, tobacco use unhealthy diets and physical inactivity".
The governor listed other predisposing health risk factors in the state to include industrialisation, time pressures, availability of technology for passive recreation, the fast food phenomenon and relatively sedentary lifestyle.
LUTH Chief Medical Director, Prof Akin Osibogun, said the hospital has made progress since its inception in 1962 as it "now attends to average of 230,000 outpatients annually."
Osibogun said the hospital has been pivotal in the production of 4,642 medical doctors and 702 dental surgeons in collaboration with the Lagos College of Medicine of the Lagos University (CMUL).
The CMD added that LUTH has developed a number of manpower development programmes and trainings, and the tertiary health institution "has been faithfully fulfilling its mandates and is poised to do even more".
In another development, the Lagos State government has reiterated its commitment to ensuring a secured and safe Lagos for all residents irrespective of ethnic or religious background.
Commissioner for Science and Technology, Mr. Adebiyi Fatai Mabadeje stated this while declaring open a training programme for agencies whose operations are related to security and emergency situation at the Lagos State Security and Command Centre, Alausa, Ikeja yesterday.
Mabadeje said the high level of security provided by the state government has led to the growth of the economy and increased investment attraction from different parts of the world. The Commissioner however, appealed to parents to educate their children not to make fake calls that are not security or emergency related, adding that the call centre operators are doing their best to answer as many calls as possible and it is not proper add the burden of fake calls.
He disclosed that over five million calls are received monthly at the state's Security Command and Information Management System Centre.
