Martins Ifijeh
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole has said that the Radiotherapy Centre of the National Hospital, Abuja would commence full scale treatment to the general public come January, 2019.
He made this known while inspecting the cancer centre extension and newly installed second cancer equipment which was donated by SNEPCO Nigeria limited, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), as part of its social responsibility to Nigerians.
The new equipment, which is worth more than one million dollars, has the capacity to treat at least 100 patients a day, putting the total number of patients that could be treated at the centre at 200 per day when the two machines at the centre are fully in use.
He said: “The installation of this second equipment made the centre the only cancer hospital to run two of such cancer machines in Africa. With this feat achieved and the treatment to be given comparable to what is given anywhere in the world, I am optimistic that no Nigerian would go abroad for cancer treatment except by choice.”
He also said that the centre would also receive a PEI/CT machine (an imaging device for cancer diagnosis and treatment), adding that the cost of treatment at the hospital would depend on the type of cancer but government would keep revising it to make it affordable.
Adewole said it had been the dream of the federal government to put in place a world class centre and make it as a forerunner to other countries adding that federal government was determined to build one of such centre at each of the six geopolitical zones of the country apart from the nine other cancer centres across the country.
Speaking on the preparedness of the hospital for the expected influx of patients already thronging the centre, the Chief Medical Director, National Hospital, Abuja, Dr. Jaff Momoh, said the centre was equipped with high calibre of medical personnel trained on cancer treatment and management.
