The Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) has taken a significant step towards improving healthcare services in the state with the unveiling of two new operating theatres and an 11 bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
The new facilities were commissioned under a public private partnership between LASUTH and The Ambulance Company (TAC).
Prof. Adetokunbo Fabamwo, Chief Medical Director of LASUTH, described the commissioning as a celebration of a very stable partnership aimed at tackling two long standing challenges the backlog of elective surgical cases and the shortage of critical care beds.
“Look, we must commission whatever, key, low key, medium key, and high key, just commission and get the place started,” Fabamwo said at the event.
The hospital has a large number of surgeons, Fabamwo explained. “We have more than 40 surgeons in LASUTH, and I’m not talking about general surgeons alone. We have gynecological surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, pediatric surgeons, ENT surgeons, and maxillofacial surgeons all of whom need theatres.
Yet we only had four operating theatre suites. This partnership with TAC now adds two more theatres, providing more options for patients who need elective surgeries.”
The new ICU facility is expected to improve emergency care in Lagos.
“Many times, especially at odd hours, we get requests for critically ill patients who need intensive care, but our beds are full,” Fabamwo said.
“Today, we are inaugurating 11 ICU beds five of them high density to address this acute shortage.”
The Managing Director of TAC, Dr. Aisha Atanda, said the company was proud to partner with LASUTH on what she called a world class critical care service.
“We have worked tirelessly over the past year to make this project a reality,” Atanda said. “We are providing 11 ICU beds, state of the art ventilators, and two fully equipped operating suites. I personally know the difficulty of finding ICU space in Lagos, and I’m glad that today we are solving that problem even if just a bit for families who desperately need these services.”
Fabamwo assured that the income generated from the new facilities would be ploughed back into improving services for patients. “Whatever income we get from running these facilities will be ploughed back into improving services for the common man,” he said. “This is how we are reducing dependence on government funding and thinking outside the box to deliver quality healthcare.”
