Frontpage News (3259)
Lagos Deploys Technology to Aid Delivery of Precision Healthcare
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The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said that the state government will deploy technology to aid precision, faster and smarter healthcare services in all healthcare facilities as a means of achieving its health and environment mandate.
Sanwo-Olu who disclosed this while declaring open a three-day Smart Health Technical Symposium on e-Health, themed “Lagos State Smart Health Information Platform, (SHIP)” stressed that the present administration was prepared to leverage on technology to improve healthcare delivery in the state.
The Medical Guild has urged the Lagos State Government to replace doctors who have exited the service of the Lagos State Government to avert the imminent crisis in the state’s health sector. The Chairman of the Guild, Dr Oluwajimi Sodipo, at a briefing held on Tuesday in Lagos lamented that an estimated 2,650 doctors were insufficient to cater for the population of Lagos State.
“On average, one to three doctors leave the service of the Lagos State Government every month. It is, indeed, worrisome that in the last two years, over 600 doctors had left the employment of the state government without being replaced.
The Federal Ministry of Health, through the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has announced the inclusion of three new laboratories into national yellow fever/measles/rubella laboratory network.
According to a statement signed by the Director-General, NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu on Tuesday, the three new laboratories are the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Edo State, the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu and NCDC National Reference Laboratory, Abuja.
The mortuary of the Federal Medical Centre, Gusau, Zamfara State, was in the early hours of Tuesday gutted by fire. The mortuary, which is the only one being used by the hospital to keep dead bodies, was completely burnt down by the fire, which started around 3.30am.
Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu on Tuesday appealed to resident doctors in the state to call off their strike.
About 190 doctors, under the auspices of the Resident Doctors Association of the University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital, on Friday embarked on an indefinite strike in protest against the failure of the state government to pay them their six months’ salaries. It was learnt that the state government reacted by engaging consultants to attend to patients.
WHO releases urgent global health challenges for next 10 years
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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released urgent health challenges for the next decade, urging world leaders to invest more resources in core health priorities and systems. WHO, in a statement on Wednesday in Lagos, said failure of world leaders to invest adequately in health priorities puts lives, livelihoods and economies in jeopardy.
“With the deadline for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals quickly approaching, the United Nations General Assembly has underscored that the next 10 years must be the decade of action.
Nigeria’s vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, on Monday, said Nigeria has the highest prevalence rate of cancer cases in West Africa. He said about 72,000 of over 100,000 cancer patients reported annually, lost their lives.
Mr Osinbajo disclosed this on Monday when he laid the foundation stone of Kano Cancer Centre at Muhammad Buhari Specialist Hospital, Giginyu. The new centre is planned to be a replica of the World Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. “WHO reports that in 2018, four per cent of deaths in Nigeria were caused by cancer. Nigeria’s cancer cases are about 15 per cent of cases in West Africa. In the whole of West Africa, we take 15 per cent. So, there is a major problem with cancer in Nigeria.
How NHIS squandered over N6.8 billion on illegal allowances
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The staff and management of Nigeria’s Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) between 2016 and 2017 helped themselves with several ‘irregular’ and unapproved allowances totalling N6.8 billion, a recently released audit report has revealed.
These infractions were recorded during the reign of Usman Yusuf, the controversially sacked NHIS Executive Secretary, according to the 2017 Annual Audit from the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (OAGF). The report adds a new layer to the barrage of allegations of fraudulent activities that tainted Mr Yusuf’s trenure.
In my decades of practice as musclo-skeletal physiotherapist, I have come to find out that 50 per cent of female patients I treat, about 26 per cent who were nurses were in their late fifties and had presented with very rickety back that had always been accompanied with distressful pain.Have you ever paused to ask why there is an alarming decrease in the population of older and seasoned nurses in our health institutions? Yes, some of them have gone to their early retirement. Some have switch over to less stressful areas such as teaching in the nursing schools.
As the World Health Organization (WHO) mapped out the year 2020 to appreciate and celebrate nurses and midwives across the globe, it’s imperative for Nigeria and Nigerians to follow suit. With the theme; “Nurses: A Voice to Lead; Nursing the World to Health,” one would concur to the indisputable fact that the health of a nation is basis for its wealth.
In Nigeria, the health sector has received little or nothing in terms of finance and budget meant to boost both human resources and facilities needed to improve health care delivery in the country. In April 2001, the African Union countries (Nigeria been the host) met and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15 per cent of their annual budget to improve the health care delivery for citizens, called “Abuja Declaration,”
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The United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organisation have started an awareness campaign on the need to immunise the residents of Ekiti State against yellow fever.
WHO’s Technical Officer in the state, Mr Ayomide Aibinuomo, said there would be immunisation across the 16 council areas of the state between January 24 and February 2 to ensure that residents are free from the killer disease.
Lassa fever kills 14, infects 82 in seven states, panic in Ondo
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Lassa fever has killed 14 persons, infected 82 others in seven states and 13 councils in the country. The states include Ondo, Edo, Ebonyi, Taraba, Plateau, Bauchi and Ogun.
According to latest figures from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), tagged Lassa fever Situation Report Epi Week 02: 06 – 12 January 2020, the number of new confirmed cases for the same period in 2019 was 60. The NCDC report released yesterday showed the number of deaths decreased from 16 for the same period in 2019
Nigeria is applying for 890 million dollars grant from Global Fund to reduce the burden of HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria from 2021 to 2023. Mr Dozie Ezechukwu, the Executive Secretary, Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) Global Fund Nigeria, disclosed this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.
CCM Nigeria, the custodian of Global Fund (GF) grant, is a body of representatives of government, bilateral and multilateral organisations, Civil Society Organisations, patients, communities, private sector and academia.The mandate of CCM is to oversee the delivery of Global Fund HIV, Tuberculosis, Malaria and Resilient Sustainable Systems for Health (RSSH) grant.
Patients who quit smoking one month to surgery have less complications
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Smokers who quit smoking at least four weeks or more before their surgical operation are more likely to have lower post-surgical complications, a new World Health Organisation (WHO) report has shown.
The UN health agency, in a statement released on its website on Monday, said tobacco smokers are at a significantly higher risk of post-surgical complications than their non-smoking counterparts. Evidence from the new report revealed that smokers who quit approximately four weeks or more before surgery have a lower risk of complications and “better results six months afterwards”.
