Osinbajo Commissions Cancer Treatment Centre At National Hospital, Abuja
Wife of the Vice president, Her Excellency, Mrs. Dalapo Osinbajo has commissioned a new State of the art Cancer treatment unit at the newly completed Radiotherapy department of the National Hospital, Abuja.
Speaking at the event, Mrs. Osinbajo commended management and staff of National Hospital for installing the new equipment in spite of challenges of paucity of funds adding that she looked forward to the day Nigeria would be free from Cancer.
She further appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to join hands with President Buhari’ s government in fighting Cancer scourge because according to her, with standard equipment in the new centre, she saw hope.
In his speech, the Honourable Minister of health, Prof. Isaac Adewole revealed that a second machine of the same type and model would be available in the next three months, Courtesy of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO) at a cost of over a million dollars”
The Minister added that Cancer control is one of the signature programmes of the President Buhari’ s Administration and the administration was investing in at least 8 new radiotherapy treatment centres and chemotherapy facilities across all geopolitical zones in 2018. He regretted that currently, Nigeria losses about 10,000 patients to cancer yearly due to lack of standard Cancer treatment equipment
“I have also encouraged some state government to invest on both radiotherapy and chemotherapy so as to improve quality of care and survival of cancer patients” the Minister assured.
Adewole opined that all these effort would give access to these modality of treatment for all patients at affordable cost thereby stemming the tide of capital flight with huge economic loss when Nigerians go to India and other parts of the world seeking for treatment.
In his welcome address, the Chief Medical Director, Dr. Jeff Momoh, informed that the new ‘’LINAC’’ machine is the first of its kind in Nigeria and staff of the relevant departments had been trained on its use.
He added that the equipment had passed the necessary quality requirements with license for its use from relevant regulatory agencies including International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Dr. Momoh however appealed for more support from the Federal government and development partners so that the entire complex could be completed with other necessary equipment and relevant manpower to run it as a centre of excellence for cancer care.
