Catholic Church Expresses Desire to Partner Lagos Govt to Improve Healthcare Delivery

Ugo Aliogo

The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos Archdiocese, Dr. Adewale Martins, has expressed the desire of the archdiocese to partner Lagos State government to improve healthcare delivery in the state.

Martins, who disclosed this in Lagos during the 10th anniversary celebration and commissioning of ultra-modern intensive care unit and orthopedic theatre with C-ARM, stated that the Catholic Church has always collaborated with government.

He also stated that it is the basic duty of government to provide healthcare for the people, but government cannot do it alone, therefore there is need for private sector and faith based organisations to assist, “so it is to that effect that we are collaborating with government to provide healthcare for people.”

The archbishop expressed confidence that the collaboration with government would be further strengthened especially with the provision of equipment and giving of waivers to the church in procuring the equipment that she needs.

According to him, “One of the things we have asked the government to do is the provision of an ambulance to ensure that the services we offer here will synchronise well with similar healthcare institutions in the country.

“Concerning the issue of our plans for the future, the hospital was started with the view of providing a state-of-the-art treatment for cancer such that people will not travel abroad to get treatment for cancer.

” We are in discussions with medical personnel in India who specialise in this area of medicine so that we can learn from them, and collaborate with them to provide the services, so that people will not spend too much for treatment overseas in order to get treated.

“We are hopeful that we can get collaboration with regards to exchange of professionals in these areas of treatment of cancer patients.

“The Augustine University which is an institution of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos is working towards having a college of medicine.

“When we have the college of medicine, we are hopeful that this hospital will be ready to provide the teaching hospital that the college of medicine needs.”