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 said this during an inspection and walkthrough of the MHF at the Gbagada General Hospital earlier on Tuesday.
The MHF is a fully-equipped healthcare facility that can be built and operational within 30 days. It is a prefabricated, customizable, and transportable porta cabin 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 Government’s willingness to collaborate with AMHS to deploy the facility, noting that the MHF will come handy in interim and stop-gap situations where the government haven’t erected physical structures yet. “I can see opportunities here,” he noted.
Briefing the Commissioner before the walkthrough of the facility, Engr. Femi Akintunde, Group Managing Director, Alpha Mead Group, parent company to AMHS, disclosed how the company came by 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, 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: “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% 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”.
He further stated that the challenge can be put in context when squared against 2019 data from Nigeria Health Facility Register (NHFR).
“According to the report, Nigeria has 40,345 registered hospitals and clinics to serve the 201 million population. This simply implies that one healthcare facility is responsible for an estimated five million Nigerians”, Omidiora explained.
He added that the MHF is equipped with Radiology Information System, Picture Archiving Communication System (RISPACS), Enterprise Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and Telehealth infrastructure for real-time reporting of investigation and remote consultation.
