Abuth as Medical supreme Court of Nigeria

It will indeed be an understatement to say that the newly commissioned Afe Babalola Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) Ado Ekiti has put in place several medical programmes within the campus of the fastest growing private university in Africa, Afe Babalola University to cut off the cost of travelling Oversea for medical attention by Nigerians, but has also put up several measures to lead by example as the best and first privately owned University Hospital in Nigeria

It would equally amount to mincing of words to describe the world class University Hospital as just the best in Africa but an unrivalled best Private University Teaching Hospital in Africa with latest multi-billion naira state- of -the- art equipment being managed by a group of experts in various fields of medical profession carefully selected from both internally and abroad in a bid to ensure that good services are rendered to people.

ABUTH, the massively built Teaching Hospital within the premises of Afe Babalola university, Ado Ekiti, a university solely built by a not rich Nigerian but simply a wealthy Ado Ekiti indigene, Aare Afe Babalola who has sold his life completely to the welfare and well-being of humanity in the sense of it has`now become the medical Supreme Court of Nigeria with its multi system programme put in place to give out the best medical service to people in a bid to changing the culture of Nigerians travelling Oversea to get the best medical attention which in otherwise are readily available now in ABUTH, Ado Ekiti.

Part of the programme recently signed was the Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with Aster Group of Hospitals in Dubai, United Arab Emirates which took place on Tuesday, 16tg August in the Talent Discovery Hall of the University in Ado Ekiti where it was agreed that Aster will offer short and long terms as well as permanent partnership for smooth take off of ABUATH .

The partnership, according to ABUAD’s founder, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN) , will make the Afe Babalola Teaching Hospital and the Dubai based Medical institution to sign a pact in the areas of training, consultancy, offering of technical expertise and medical administration.

Speaking after signing the memorandum, Dr. Navin Pascal, who spoke on behalf of the Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of Aster, said the hospital has subsidiaries in nine countries and had been receiving patients from over 90 countries across the world.

He said it was sad that Nigeria loses over 35,000 doctors to advanced countries due to poor remunerations, adding that the trend has been affecting healthcare service in the country.

“Aster has become a referral centre in the middle East. Our partnership with ABUAD will be in the areas of training, technical and administration.

“What we will do is to train the doctors here so that ABUAD can be self sufficient in having experts that can perform critical operations that can make the rich and middle class Nigerians to see the hospitals as a better alternative.

“We appreciate the fact that ABUAD is working hard for humanity and Aster partnering with it will bring a paradigm shift in Nigeria’s
health sector”, he said.

Aare Babalola revealed that a delegation will leave for Dubai on January 26 to perfect the MoU for enforcement.

He ssid, “In this partnership, ABUTH and Aster are equal partners. Though, we agreed for long and short terms, but the memorandum may be forever depending on its work ability.

“Nigerians can’t afford to be spending so much on medical tourism and I have faith that this partnership will make the country to be a leading nation in healthcare services”.

He explained that the breaking down of medical equipment in critical areas like dialysis , oncology and cardiology was becoming embarrassing, urging Aster to bring in experts in biomedical engineering to train the experts in ABUTH to prevent such from occurring in the hospital.

Similarly, ABUAD equally on Wednesday January 17, 2018 organized a seminal where a United States of America based philanthropic agency, Project
C.U.R.E, had trained various medical personnel in Ekiti State health institutions as part of the ways to tackle the increasing infant mortality rate in Nigeria.

The programme dubbed: ‘Helping Babies Breathe (HBB)’ powered by Project C.U.R.E, was facilitated by ABUAD in collaboration with World Health Organisation (WHO) and United States Agency for International Development(USAID) .

At the one-day workshop held in the University campus on Thursday, Miss Amy Greene,who spoke on behalf of the agency’s President, Dr. Douglas Jackson said they decided to hold the programme in ABUAD as a mark of support for the newly commissioned 400-bed multi system Afe Babalola Teaching Hospital(ABUTH).

Greene, who revealed that the agency had donated $1m medical equipment to ABUATH, said that it has saved about 1,620 newborn babies from untimely death due to trainings it has offered to experts operating in sub-saharan area of Africa continent.

“In Africa, less than 33 per cent of children had access to neonatal care and this mainly predisposed them to deaths usually caused by malnutrition, diarrhea, HIV/AIDS and other preventable diseases.

“With this training, our medical personnel will be able to sensitize the pregnant women about the hazards associated with poor neonatal care and need to take care of their personal hygiene for improved health of our babies”.

ABUAD’s founder, Chief Afe Babalola(SAN) , said his mother, Abigail, was a victim of poor maternal care, saying only four out of ten children she delivered survived infancy .

“I want to appreciate project C.U.R.E for its philanthropic gesture. Women and children are very important in the society and anything that affects them will have adverse effects on the larger society.

“ABUAD had signed MoU with Aster hospital in Dubai, all these we are doing to help Nigerians to get treatment here in Nigeria without travelling abroad”.

The wife of ABUAD’s founder, Mrs Modupe Babalola , apart from saving about 60,500 newborn babies from deaths, that project C.U.R.E has trained 1,343 birth attendants and facilitated train-the-trainers trips worldwide through the HBB programme.

“With this training, the three most common causes of preventable neonatal death: ‘complications during childbirth, complications from preterm birth and neonatal infections.

“But there is need for us to get to the grassroots where unregistered deaths took place and where deaths are often erroneously associated to witch and wizard without paying attention to the real issue”.

Describing the programme as apt and essential, wife of the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Olori Bosede Adejugbe, said it would be suicidal to ignore the frightening revelations by the United Nations Children’s Endowment Fund(UNICEF) that 2,300 children under five years die per day in Nigeria, second highest in the world.

By Gbenga Sodeinde, Ado Ekiti