The Lagos State Government has commenced phased refurbishment and renovation of all general hospitals in the State.
This is in line with the current administration’s medical infrastructure blueprint strategy which is aimed at revamping health facilities and and make it fit for purpose.
The State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi was speaking after a facility inspection tour of two secondary health facilities; Ebute Metta and Harvey Road Health Centres, that have been approved for refurbishment in 2021, noted that the refurbishment and renovation strategy which commenced last year would address the issues of design faults, drainage, patient flow, staff flow, water collection, infection prevention compliance or non-compliance, energy and ventilations.
“Mr. Governor already knows the state of the General Hospitals and his mandate is that we do a deep refurbishment in all the general hospitals and bring them all to standard that is acceptable at an international standard.
“So, instead of repairing the general hospitals in little pieces every year, we are coming to a number of hospitals every year to do a complete refurbishing so that by the time we finish it will look like a brand new hospital and we won’t need to come back to that hospital for a number of years, and then, we move on every year to refurbish six-seven or eight hospitals; that way in two or three years, we would have covered most of the hospitals in Lagos State.” Prof Abayomi said
Abayomi who mentioned that eight hospitals have been earmarked for refurbishment in 2021 in addition to the ones started last year, explained that the project would also focus on bringing down the carbon footprints in the medical infrastructure and embracing renewable energy like solar, inverters and natural ventilators.
According to him, “We are trying to keep the hospitals a low energy and low carbon footprints; we don’t want the Medical Director to spend their IGR on diesel and fueling generators. So, where we can cool a building down naturally and use renewable energy like solar or naturally ventilators or inverters, we would do that just to bring down the carbon footprints of all our medical infrastructure and reduce use of fossil fuel and generally redesign the building or rehabilitate it to be a lot cooler”
“We are also paying attention to sanitation; toilet, wash hand basins and we are making sure that all the fittings are robust, strong and dependable, so that for five-ten years, none of the replacement will suffer underlying disrepair. So, that is generally what the intention is”.
He noted that repair and refurbishment would be carried out in such a way that would not allow for major repairs in another decade except for continuous maintenance that would be done by the hospital management in collaboration with the Lagos State Asset Maintenance Agency (LASIAMA).
“We have about 27 general hospitals, so we have a lot of work to do but we are making sure that everywhere we go, we are going right to fix and address the problem; the structural integrity, ventilation, Infection Prevention and Control, movement of patients and staff, power, flooding and all kinds of issues”, the Commissioner said.
Abayomi disclosed that the State government has embarked on some Greenfield medical infrastructure projects to prevent issues noticed in health infrastructure across all levels of care in the State, stressing that all issues bedeviling medical health infrastructure will disappear when the Governor Jide Sanwo-Olu’s Medical Infrastructure Blueprint strategy is rolled out.
Dominica Nwabufo
