Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) has successfully carried out its first Bone Bridge surgery as well as Cochlear Implant surgery on three patients without the support of foreign medical experts, Jide Idris, the state commissioner for health, said on Tuesday.
His counterpart in the ministry of agriculture, Suarau Oluwatoyin, also said the state was targeting the production of 4,000 metric tons of rice by end of 2016, as against the current output of 1,500 metric tons. This, he said, is part of measures by the government towards food security in Lagos.
Oluwatoyin also told journalists at news briefing in Ikeja, that preliminary works had begun at the state-owned rice mill in Imota, Ikorodu, to upgrade its capacity to10 metric tons per hour, from the original installed capacity of 2.5 metric tons. He said the upgrade would be completed before the end of this year and would tremendously boost rice supply to the Lagos market.
The agric commissioner unveiled plans to build five mini modern abattoirs in different locations across Lagos – Bariga, Ikorodu, Matori and Otto-Awori and Agbowa through a public private partnership (PPP) arrangement.
Idris, the health commissioner, who also briefed the media on developments within the health sector in the past 11 months, said LASUTH also had its first successful kidney transplant carried out by a team of urologists and nephrologists in November 2015 and discharged the patient in good condition on December 1, 2015, while another transplant was being planned.
According to Idris, within the period under review the teaching hospital in collaboration with Vision Care and South Korean Community in Nigeria provided free cataract surgeries for 120 Lagosians and treated 250 outpatients between November 9 and 13, 2015 with 100 percent success rate.
Under the blindness prevention programme, a total of 7, 250 patients with varying ophthalmic conditions were screened at 29 different community screening venues out of which 4, 867, representing 67.1 percent, were given free glasses.
On projects, he said the University College of Medicine (LASUCOM) was being completed for commissioning, while the contract for renovation and extension of the Old Ayinke House had been re-awarded with immediate commencement of work as well as the Psychiatry Ward.
JOSHUA BASSEY
