Delta State University Teaching Hospital, Oghara, is set to kick start kidney transplant by February next year, Governor Emmauel Uduaghan has disclosed.
The Governor said this will be made possible through the benefiting partnership the state is having with the University of Texas Teaching Hospital, Dallas, United States of America.
He expressed delight at the tremendous increase in medical tourism to the state, saying the transplant would commence once the doctors and nurses from the state who are undergoing training on renal issues and treatment in Dallas, complete their studies.
In addition to DELSUTH, Governor Uduaghan said Central Hospital in Warri is also being equipped with Dialyses Centres where dialyses fee has been heavily subsidized by 75 per cent from N200,000 to N50,000 for the indigenes of the state, making it the cheapest in Nigeria.“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 benefited 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, adding that the state was paying more attention to primary healthcare in order to reduce the pressure on the secondary and tertiary healthcare levels.
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.
