The Lagos State Government says no fewer than 250 babies are born every month in Alimosho General Hospital, Igando.
The Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, announced this on Thursday during the inauguration of the 149-bed Maternal and Child Centre (MCC) in Igando, Alimosho Local Government Area.
Abayomi said that the hospital attended to 14,000 pregnant mothers and children per month and it performed 1,300 caesarean sections in 2018.
He said that the existing MCC had 70 beds, 44 cots and 10 incubators with the necessary support services.
According to him, the Alimosho Local Government is divided into six, Alimosho Local Government and five Local Community Development Areas (LCDAs).
”The Alimosho General Hospital and MCC serves the 3.5 million people of Alimosho and a total of six million from surrounding areas, which if you think about it, is bigger than many cities and even some countries in Africa and around the world.
”The hospital attends to an average of 45,000 patients a month across 14 different clinics and admits over 4,000 patients per year,” he said.
The commissioner said that delivery of qualitative and effective healthcare services to mothers and children and the population at large in response to the ever-increasing service demand of the teeming population in Lagos State was paramount to the present administration.
He said that the inauguration of the new MCC was another milestone at efforts towards improving the health indices of the citizens.
According to him, the MCC is geared at reducing to the barest minimum the unacceptably high morbidities and mortalities in pregnant women and children, especially children less than five years of age.
”While we are declaring zero tolerance on potholes and power outages, it is only natural that we also declare zero tolerance on unnecessary deaths in our pregnant mothers and children.
”The unfortunate causes of death in our children less than five years of age are Sickle Cell anaemia, malaria, chest infections and diarrhoeal diseases.
”The causes of death in new born are difficulty breathing, infections jaundice or yellow eyes, prematurity and birth defects. All of which are mostly preventable.
”So the existing facility has become grossly inadequate for the people of Alimosho and its environs.
”The addition of a new MCC will reduce our referrals to other health facilities and provide the much desperately needed space to treat our mothers and children.
For this we say thank you to the first Lady of Nigeria, Dr Mrs Aisha Buhari and Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire for making this possible,” he said.
