The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority–Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Cancer Centre has treated no fewer than 10,000 patients since its inception in 2019, the Chief Medical Director, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi Araba, Southwest Nigeria, Professor Wasiu Adeyemo has revealed.
Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos on the sidelines of the centre’s fifth anniversary on Wednesday, the CMD said before the period, a large number of patients could not access cancer care because the machines were not working across the country.
He said the NSIA-LUTH (NLCC) Cancer Centre was a Private Partnership Plan, which is a working model. Adeyemo told NAN that because of the successes recorded by the centre, the Federal Government made a budget for it, with plans to site an additional five across the country.
According to him, the centre was delighted to celebrate its successes and achievements, and that things were possible in Nigeria using the right models. Speaking earlier at the anniversary, the Chief Clinical Oncologist, Professor Abayomi Durosimi-Etti, said at the moment, NLCC was the best cancer centre in West Africa. He emphasized that survival was a factor of how early one presented at the centre, adding that if detected early, with modern machines, NLCC could boast of the possibility of curing that cancer.
The oncologist said the challenge facing the treatment of patients included a shortage of staff and cost of care, adding that the escalating cost of care was not only in Nigeria.
He, however, appealed for a functional National Health Insurance Scheme to take care of real cancer indigent patients. Also, the Chairman, Board of NSIA-LUTH Cancer Centre, Dr Tolulope Adewole, said that they were elated because before they embarked on the journey, there was only one linear accelerator in the country.
A medical linear accelerator is a device most commonly used for external beam radiation treatments for patients with cancer. It delivers high-energy X-rays or electrons to the region of the patient’s tumour. Adewole said that the story had always been that it could not be done and that Nigerians could not run linear accelerators because of the technicalities of the machine. “This statement has been proven not to be correct since we have shown that there are endless possibilities in Nigeria,’’ he said.
