Synlab, a top medical diagnostic service provider has expanded operations to the Delta State University Teaching Hospital (DELSUTH), Oghara, opening a new lab to meet the rising demand for medical diagnosis.
The facility was birth by collaboration between the Delta State government and the company in a growing trend seeing governments increasingly toe the path of public-private partnership to boost access to critical healthcare services.
Partnerships such as this, backed by the rising spate of chronic diseases and the attendant demand for clinical diagnosis have been a major driver of the Nigerian Clinical laboratory market, a report by Modor Intelligence shows.
The market research and consulting firm forecast the value of the clinical laboratory market in the country will grow from an estimated $504 million in 2020 to $665 by 2026.
Kenneth Okolie, chief executive officer, Synlab Nigeria urged private sector players to collaborate more with the government in proffering solutions to tackle the infrastructural deficits in the healthcare sector and providing quality healthcare services.
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“One of the challenges we face in Nigeria is access to quality healthcare services. The government has many responsibilities across different sectors with limited resources to go around. It is for this reason that Synlab has entered into a public-private partnership with Delta State to provide quality and accessible healthcare to the people of Delta state. Our mission at Synlab is to make excellent medical diagnosis accessible in Sub-Saharan Africa starting with Nigeria” he said speaking during an event launching facility.
The company plans to upgrade the status of the new facility in Oghara to an ISO accredited facility to align its operations with global standards operated in other facilities across Nigeria.
The acquisition of the majority stake in PathCare Nigeria last year earned Synlab, which already led the largest laboratory chain in Europe, a leading spot in Nigeria.
The move, Synlab said, was to enable it tap into a fast-growing market for medical tests in Africa’s most populous nation, leveraging the network of PathCare as the largest private pathology laboratory firm in Nigeria.
Clinical pathology tests are an integral part of the work done in clinical laboratories, covering the collection of clinical specimens for obtaining information about the patient’s health in order to aid in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases.
Commending Synlab on the new diagnostic lab, Onome Ogueh, chief medical officer, DELSUTH said the service delivery was most important to the teaching hospital, especially to meet the demands of patients.
“This is why we are grateful to SYNLAB for coming to DELSUTH. We believe the presence of SYNLAB here will increase our capacity to provide proper service delivery to our patients and doctors,” Ogueh said.
Erhiatake Ibori-Suenu, member representing Ethiope west in the Delta State House of Assembly, lauded the partnership with DELSUTH to uplift the healthcare system in Oghara, saying she has no doubt her constituents would benefit from it.
