Lagos Health Commissioner Lauds MHF Innovation
The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, has described the Modular Healthcare Facility (MHF), recently launched by Alpha Mead Healthcare Management Services (AMHS) as an exciting innovation that will boost access to healthcare in Nigeria.
He made this remark during an inspection and walkthrough of the MHF at the Gbagada General Hospital recently.
The MHF, is a fully-equipped healthcare facility that can be built and operational within 30 days.
It is a prefabricated, customisable, and transportable portacabin with installed medical equipment and healthcare technology applications that can be set on wheels, coupled together, and start operations in few days.
Speaking to journalists after the inspection, the commissioner said: “It’s innovative; nice. It’s well organised and clean. It has a robust array of facilities within it and can be used in specific locations.
“I’m happy to see it’s an indigenous product; it has all the required technical backdrops. It’s also energy conscious. It’s mobile.”
The Commissioner also expressed the state government’s willingness to collaborate with AMHS to deploy the facility, noting that the MHF will come handy in interim and stopgap situations where the government haven’t erected physical structures yet.
Briefing the commissioner before the walkthrough of the facility, the Group Managing Director, Alpha Mead Group Engr. Femi Akintunde, disclosed how the company came up with the exciting innovation and its benefits.
He explained that Alpha Mead was inspired by the need to take quality healthcare facilities to all Nigerians and reduce the construction timeline of a healthcare facility to less than 30 days, saving the time lost to design, construction, equipment installation and commissioning of regular brick and mortar healthcare facilities.
Akintunde further explained that the MHF is not a replacement for hospitals but designed to complement gaps in healthcare, especially leverage it mobility feature.
The GMD, who thanked the state government for allowing the company to set up the facility at the Gbagada General Hospital, further disclosed that the “MHF leverages technology to connect patients with medical doctors anywhere through its telemedicine facilities.”
On his part, the Managing Director, of AMHS, Kunle Omidiora said the product is coming to bridge the widening gap in access to quality healthcare in Nigeria. He commented.
According to him, “from whatever lens one chooses to view the challenges with the healthcare sector in Nigeria today; whether financial, personnel, equipment, systems or technologies; the biggest challenge with Nigeria’s healthcare sector is that of access to quality healthcare.
“This challenge is costing our nation a great deal. For example, a USAID report noted that Nigeria shoulders up to 10 per cent of the global disease burden.
“The report noted further that this situation is caused by lack of access to quality healthcare facilities and workers, particularly in the rural areas.”