By Robert Egbe
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has launched a modular healthcare facility (MHF) at the Gbagada General Hospital, Lagos, said to be the first of its kind in Africa.
Osinbajo said the facility had the potential to support the government’s efforts towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for 2030.
The MHF, built by Alpha Mead Healthcare Management Services, a subsidiary of the Alpha Mead Group, is a customised, mobility-enhanced, prefabricated portacabin with detachable modules equipped with state-of-the-art clinical and diagnostic equipment.
According to the company, it is “designed to take quality healthcare services to the doorstep of all Nigerians.”
The VP, who was represented at the event on Wednesday by the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, urged other local and foreign stakeholders to emulate the firm and invest in the Nigerian health market.
Osinbajo said: “The Alpha Mead Healthcare Management System initiative has appropriately captured the SDG Goal-9 which aims at building resilient infrastructure, promote industrialisation and foster innovation across sectors, including health, innovation, infrastructure, new skills technology, development, which will therefore help drive out SDG’s including SDG-3; which target achieving universal health coverage; a global priority important to the attachment of 2030 agenda, especially in low and medium-income countries.
“It will therefore improve the quality, equity and access to healthcare services for all in line with the SDG principle and mantra of leaving no one behind.”
He reiterated Nigeria’s commitment to improving both geographical and financial access to quality healthcare services through aggressive healthcare infrastructure, development, and expansion, horizontally and vertically.
“The Alpha Mead Healthcare and Management Services Mobile Healthcare facility has the potential to support the government’s efforts towards transforming medical diagnostics and reduce barriers to healthcare access in Nigeria,” Osinbajo added.
Alpha Mead Group Chairman Mutiu Sunmonu explained that the idea of the MHF was to aggressively drive the penetration of healthcare facilities in Nigeria by “reducing the construction timeline of a healthcare facility to less than 30 days, saving the time lost in design, construction, equipment installation and commissioning of regular brick and mortar healthcare facilities.
“It will address the issue of inadequate medical practitioners, particularly doctors in the rural areas or crisis zones, by leveraging technology to connect patients with medical doctors anywhere through its telemedicine facilities.
“It will also provide the right healthcare equipment that meets the minimum standard for each tier of the healthcare segment; primary, secondary, and tertiary.
“Its aim is also to reduce the dependency of the healthcare facility on public utilities by equipping the MHF with efficient and clean utility systems such as solar power, bio-digester Sewage system, etc.”
According to him, the Nigerian health sector needs a massive upscaling, “and we are happy to be leading this innovation, particularly at a time like this.
“For us, the MHF is more than a healthcare facility; it is also an entrepreneurial package, capable of serving both social and economic purposes by creating jobs and business opportunities for Small and Medium Scale Enterprise, professional healthcare workers, and support staff,” he said.
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