The University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, says it will champion the provision of intervention radiology services and training in West Africa for precise and effective healthcare delivery in diseases such as cancer, fibroids and pain control.
The UCH Chief Medical Director, Professor Jesse Otegbayo, made this known at the opening of the first International UCH/RAD-AID Interventional Radiology Symposium.
Interventional radiology is an infusion of minimally invasive procedures with radiology that ensures shorter hospital stay, fewer complications and more effective treatment of different diseases. It can replace surgical operations.
Otegbayo, who spoke through the hospital’s chairman, Medical Advisory Committee, Dr Victor Akinmoladun, said that the hospital is committed to becoming the training hub and a platform for research into interventional radiology in West Africa.
According to him, the workshop is to further help to bring people together to work on how best to kickstart intervention radiology services for patients and training at the hospital.
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He assured that treatment using intervention radiology would further checkmate medical tourism.
“These are basic things that people should be able to access in Nigeria; it is not necessarily a care meant for the rich. So if those services are here, we believe that a lot of those who will want to travel abroad may reconsider their decision.”
Programme Manager, RAD-AID Nigeria, Dr Hammed Ninalowo said through image guidance to perform minimally invasive procedures, a woman with fibroid in her womb can be treated and go home within 12 to 23 hours and resume back to work within one week.
According to him, “these are minimally invasive procedures where the complications are much lower, the hospital stay is much lower, the downtime of the patient is much lower and we are able to touch patients in nearly every facet of medicine.”
Dr Ninalowo said that the problems that intervention radiology can be used to tackle are endless and that it stands to improve the survival rate from liver and lung cancers in Nigeria.
Dr Steven Hunts, an associate professor and trainer from University of Pennsylvania, said that UCH was uniquely positioned to lead in introducing this new field of medicine to the entire continent,
According to him, “intervention radiology will improve patient’s experience for many reasons; we simply do not have enough surgeons and anaesthesiologists to take care of all the patients that need care.
“In addition, many patients cannot afford living in hospitals for months, so they need to come in, relieve the problem and go on with their lives. That is what intervention radiology allows you to do.”
Head of the intervention radiology team at the hospital, Professor Biodun Adeyinka, said the reemergence of intervention radiology in Nigeria and at the hospital was made possible with the support of RAD-AID International, a US-based non-profit organisation.
“They have collaborated with UCH, Ibadan; they are planning on coming in about three or four times in a year for further training on intervention radiology.”