$11m NSIA-LUTH Oncology Centre Commissioned
President Muhammadu Buhari, cutting the tape to commission the centre while others watched with excitement
President Muhammadu Buhari has commissioned a $11m world class Oncology Centre jointly built under a partnership arrangement between the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).
The centre was inaugurated recently as part of activities marking the President’s visit to Lagos State.
Cancer Treatment Centre was structured under a public-private partnership (ppp) arrangement between the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, NSIA and the LUTH.
The project is an 11 million dollar investment for the rehabilitation, equipping and operation of an existing cancer center co-located in LUTH, which will provide advanced radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment services.
Buhari said 40 per cent of funds spent by Nigerians on medical tourism was spent by patients seeking treatment for cancer.
Despite having an increasing number of citizens suffering from cancer, we until now, had only two working radiotherapy machines in the country.
“Working through the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority and the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, we utilized a PPP model that unlocked investment capital to directly address this issue.
“We will replicate this model across the country to bring quality, first class healthcare services to every Nigerian who needs it.In the case of the Cancer Centre, we can measure this value in currency, but we prefer to measure the value in terms of its social impact,” he said.
He said the number of lives of Nigerians that will be saved and positively affected as well as the impact of capacity building for our people, adding that over the coming months, the NSIA would also commission two Modern Medical Diagnostic Centres.
The two centres will be co-located in the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), Kano State and the Federal Medical Centre Umuahia (FMCU),Abia State.
According to him, “Our goal today is not simply to celebrate and applaud the culmination of months of hard work to achieve this objective.”
In 2017, NSIA entered into a partnership arrangement with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) to co-sponsor the development of a world class Oncology centre with the Authority serving as principal financier while LUTH contributed its physical assets.
Following months of development, construction of the centre began in March of 2018 and fully functional facility was completed within 9 months. The completed facility, NSIA-LUTH Cancer Centre, is designed to provide state-of-the-art cancer care and treatment, prevention and early detection, education and training services. The facility is equipped with an appropriate range of cutting-edge treatment solutions covering chemotherapy, brachytherapy and radiotherapy.
Once operation, the center will provide at least 5000 treatments annually across various classes of cancer cases. It is one of only two Oncology facilities in Nigeria, the largest in Nigeria and first of its kinds in Africa in terms of equipment configuration. To ensure operational excellence, the facility will be managed by a well-respected operator procured from South Africa, HealthShare. It is expected that the operator will avail its expertise in healthcare services management enabling knowledge transfer to the mostly Nigerian staff.
The facility will be manned by an expert faculty of oncologist, specialist nurse and hospital administrators who will bring their wealth of experience to bear when it becomes operational. For this project, NSIA invested a total of US$11 million in the centre to alleviate the disease burden of Nigeria and also to reduce depletion of the nation’s foreign exchange reserve resulting from patients seeking cancer treatment abroad. The Authority is confident that this investment will facilitate the delivery of high quality, affordable and accessible healthcare services to Nigerians and more importantly, it will save lives.
The landmark document approving the Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreement for a modern Radiotherapy Centre (Oncology) at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital was signed between the two parties in 2017.
This agreement was initially to provide $10M to equip the Hospital with a High Energy Linear Accelerator (LINAC), a Low Energy LINAC, a Brachytherapy Machine, a Treatment Planning System and other ancillary equipment to make the Centre an international destination for cancer care.
The occasion was witnessed by Dr Bola Olowu who represented the Honorable Minister of Health, Alhaji Isa Bello Sali LUTH Chairman Management Board, Mr Jide Zeitlin, Chairman NSIA Board and Mr Uche Orji, CEO NSIA.
