Hospital performs open-heart surgery on 12 children

• $400m medical centre underway in FCT

The National Hospital, Abuja said at the weekend that it has successfully carried out open-heart surgery on twelve children with heart diseases of varying complexities this year.

Chief Medical Director of the National Hospital, Dr. Jafaru Momoh, who disclosed this at a press briefing on the second batch of the open heart surgery held in Abuja, said that the six surgeries were conducted last Monday.

Momoh said that the hospital was able to carry out the surgeries through the collaboration of the Hospitals for Humanity (HfH), a United States-based NGO led by Drs. Segun Ajayi and Ikenna Omeje under a seven-year collaborative contract agreement.

According to him, the latest six surgeries bring the total number of heart surgeries conducted by the hospital to 12. “Earlier this year in August, we had the 1st set of open heart surgeries and this collaboration was to be a continuous one with performance of these specialized surgeries to the benefits of Nigerians. This is to ensure that our core function of providing expert medical care is met and also to limit medical tourism outside the country,” he said.

Meanwhile, residents of the Federal Capital Territory will soon witness a turnaround in their quest for medical treatment as plans are in top gear for a $400 million 300-bed capacity hospital.

The facility, which is planned for 35.9 hectares of land, is to be located at the Giri section of the city.

The move made by the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) in collaboration with the Universal Medical Innovation is also geared toward addressing the challenge of medical tourism occasioned by lack of medical infrastructure to cater for the needs of the people.

Executive Secretary of the Commission, Mrs. Uju Aisha Hassan Baba, who received the Board of Directors of the Hospital led by Air Vice Marshal Salifu Atawodi (rtd) in her office in Abuja expressed the determination of the Commission to encouraged indigenous investors to invest in the economy, stressing that “Local investors are supposed to be the leading light to the Foreign investors through Joint Venture Partnership (JVP).”

Chief Medical Director Momoh continued that the collaboration would further enhance technology and skills transfer to local team of experts, thereby enabling sustainability of the programme in future.

It would be recalled that on August 13 2015 the first set of open-heart surgeries was performed on six patients successfully in collaboration with the NGO.