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By Doris Obinna
Chief medical director (CMD) of Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Prof. Chris Bode, has said the institution welcomed the partnership with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to fight COVID-19 and other health emergencies in the country.
The CMD said this at the weekend during the visit of the NCDC’s director-general, Dr. Dayo Adetifa, to LUTH.
According to Bode, the NCDC DG, since he came on board, has brought his vast skills on vaccine impact and monitoring to bear on the health sector: “Adetifa has expanded the frontiers of managing not only the COVID-19 pandemic but also a number of other prevailing diseases in the country.”
While acknowledging Adetifa had his residency training at LUTH, he said the DG’s visit was a homecoming and expressed confidence that it would provide an opportunity to further deepen the cooperation between LUTH and the NCDC.
He said: “I recall the wonderful working relationship and collaboration with LUTH,” especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. “Many institutions closed up and shut down in the raging days of the pandemic. We do not blame them; the fear was high as apocalyptic predictions were made for the African landscape.
“We in LUTH, however, stepped up to the plate and did our own heavy lifting in contribution to the national efforts to contain the disease.”
The CMD said LUTH’s laboratories, led by Prof. Sunday Omilabu , first diagnosed the disease.
“The hospital’s Department of Community Medicine was closely involved in contact tracing and was part of policymaking at the emergency operation centre.
“Our clinicians admitted and treated over 1,000 cases, most with multiple co-morbidities requiring multi-disciplinary management.
“Our psychiatrist established the emotional and psychosocial support group that was later adopted by Lagos State to render invaluable psychosocial support for patients and relations of COVID-19.
“We trained other hospitals and squares from other states on how to set up their own effective COVID-19 isolation centres and our researched efforts on the pandemic were top class and the hospital was proud of all it had achieved in collaboration with the NCDC.”
The CMD, referring to the proposed 40-bed LUTH isolation centre, which is still on the drawing board, said the project should be speedily brought on stream under the DG’s leadership.
On his part, Adetifa, while commending the institution, said it had received approval to begin a three-story centre in LUTH with funds from the World Bank.
He said the agency would continue to partner with LUTH in the areas of health emergencies and COVID-19 response. According to him, official relationship with LUTH remained very important.
While reiterating that the relationship between NCDC and LUTH would continue, he said the
NCDC relies on partnerships with institutions like LUTH to help detect emergencies and look after COVID-19 patients.
