If everything works according to plans, come February next year, the Delta State University Teaching Hospital, Oghara, will kick start kidney transplant.
This is thanks to the benefiting partnership the state is currently enjoying with the University of Texas Teaching Hospital, Dallas, United States of America.
The Governor of the state, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, who disclosed this on Tuesday, acknowledged the tremendous increase in medical tourism to the state, saying with some of the state’s doctors and nurses undergoing training on renal issues and treatment in Dallas, travelling abroad for kidney transplant would soon become a thing of the past.
The oil rich state’s Teaching Hospital is now renowned as the first public health institution to have a 64 slide CT and also first to be involved in Tele-Radiology and now a centre of medical excellence as knee and hip replacements and minimally invasive surgeries have become regular features.
The Governor was certain that with these possibilities at home, the need for seeking medical attention abroad will gradually reduce as medical tourism is gradually building up in Delta state.
Besides, DELSUTH, Oghara, the governor said, has also equipped a Dialyses Centres in Central Hospital, Warri, where per session dialyses fee has been subsidized by 75 per cent.
Dialyses, which previously cost about N200,000, now goes for as low as N50,000 for indigenes of the state, the cheapest so far anywhere in Nigeria.
Uduaghan said: “Hopefully by February next year, the Renal Unit of the State University Teaching Hospital will start kidney transplant in Oghara in conjunction with the Texas University Teaching Hospital.”
He said that there has been an increase in medical tourism to the state due to the ultra-modern facilities at the Teaching Hospital, Oghara even as he revealed that as a result of the pressure on the hospital facilities and personnel, an additional 300 bed-facility would soon be added to the University Teaching Hospital, stressing that this would ease the pressure on the hospital for medical attention and reduce the waiting time for beds, especially for surgical cases.
He explained that the various health programmes in the state, especially the free maternal and rural health scheme, have benefitted both Deltans and non-Deltans alike.
This is more so in the case of the poor and needy in the state, stating that “the programme is open to all Nigerians irrespective of states and tribes in the spirit of brotherliness and peaceful co-existence.
“As a trained doctor, it will be harsh and inhuman for me to turn back a pregnant woman from the state’s free maternal programme because she is a non-Deltan.
“We are all Nigerians and we have to help ourselves in areas of need.”
Dr. Uduaghan explained that the state was paying more attention to primary healthcare in order to reduce the pressure on the secondary and tertiary healthcare levels.
On contributory pension in the state, the governor disclosed that his administration has contributed over N15 billion to the scheme for civil servants in the state since 2007, explaining that the state government has not defaulted in its contributions to the scheme.
He said that government was looking into the challenges faced in the payment of gratuity and pension of retirees in the state since 2011, especially those in the transitional stages between the old and new pension scheme and would be sorted out soon.
His words: “This government has not faulted in its contribution to the scheme since 2007 when the contributory pension scheme started.
“We have not been able to pay for the gratuity and pension of all civil servants that retired since 2011 because there are issues that need to be sorted out before we commence payment.
“Very soon, this will be done and we will pay the entire backlog.”
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