In its bid to reduce the long surgery waiting period, the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, has acquired nine state-of-the art anaesthesia machines and equipment worth over N81 million.
The UCH Chief Medical Director, Professor Jesse Otegbayo, stated this in Ibadan at the opening of the redesigned main theatre of the hospital.
Otegbayo said that leveraging on technological advances in the specialty of anaesthesiology would help improve patients’ care and speed up surgical procedures.
“When I went round the theatre at the inception of my administration, I saw the poor state of the facility, including the toilets and the changing rooms.
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“The newly redesigned and renovated theatre is part of efforts to continue with the two cardinal points of this administration which are welfare of the staffers and comfort of our patients.
“We also got rid of the obsolete anaesthetic equipment and provided state-of -the-art anaesthetic equipment, as obtainable elsewhere in the world.
“With the equipment, the waiting list for surgeries will be reduced and access to surgical procedures made easier, while there will be an increase in the number of surgeries being done.
“When the surgeons and other support staff are comfortable and have good work environment, they will be more passionate about their jobs and it will consequently affect healthcare outcome positively,’’ he said.
In his remarks, a professor of surgery, Samuel Ogunlade, commended the responsiveness and sensitivity of the CMD to the challenges being faced by theatre workers.
Ogunlade said that the work of anaesthesiologists, who form an integral part of surgical team, had been tedious due to working with obsolete and inadequate equipment.
“One of the problems in the surgery department is anaesthesia; sometimes, scheduled surgeries had to be cancelled or delayed because we didn’t have the right machine.
“Oftentimes, the few obsolete ones had to be shared, some of which were acquired about 20 years ago or even more.
“With the newly-acquired state-of-the-art equipment, anaesthesiologists can do their jobs confidently without fear of exposing the patients to unnecessary danger,’’ he said.
According to him, surgical procedures in the hospital will be faster, safer and easier, adding that it will also reduce recovery time and improve the overall healthcare outcomes.
Meanwhile, the hospital also inaugurated a new Radiology Reporting Room which was made possible through a partnership with RAD-AID International.
Otegbayo said that the radiology reporting room, which came with the installation of a Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS) and access to the Google Cloud Platform would provide essential imaging informatics services.
He said it would support the hospital’s training in radiology informatics.
“We need advanced and high-tech investigative modalities and what has been inaugurated in the radiology department is part of the efforts to make effective and accurate diagnosis.
“The opening of this facility is in line with our vision to make UCH a landmark and “Mecca” for cutting-edge research and training in West Africa,” he said.
The director of RAD-AID Nigeria, Dr Farouk Dako, said radiology informatics help clinicians to have immediate electronic access to medical images, save precious time and cost as well as allow timely medical decisions by reducing unnecessary repetition of examinations.
According to him, digital imaging and health information technologies have become critical to the provision of better and precise quality patient care and management.
“Our work here in UCH has been successful because the hospital has the pre-existing infrastructure, which makes it easy for us to take the necessary steps.
“We have been able to connect some of their X-rays and CT scans and MRIs to a more centrally located place, where it can be saved and archived whenever it is needed and patients don’t have to go around with films and worry about losing records.”
Dako, who is a radiologist said that RAD-AID International exists to advance the provision of digital imaging and health information services for medically-under-served populations in low and middle-income countries.