Lagos cardiac patients survive, govt pushes mandatory health insurance
For three Lagos residents who once faced life-threatening heart conditions, survival has become a demonstration of what access to specialised healthcare can mean.
Nineteen-year-old Lydia Ogungbayi, 16-year-old Moshood Muritala and three-year-old Ayoife George were among beneficiaries of the Lagos State Government’s free health intervention received by senior health officials last week, after undergoing cardiac treatment.
The survivors met with the Commissioner for Health, Prof Akin Abayomi, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Dr Kemi Ogunyemi, and the Permanent Secretary, Dr Dayo Lajide, at the ministry’s conference room.
The encounter also became an opportunity for the government to renew its case for mandatory health insurance, with Abayomi arguing that serious illnesses should not push families into financial ruin.
He said the cases illustrated the value of combining public funding with specialist expertise, modern medical infrastructure and insurance coverage, particularly for illnesses requiring expensive and highly specialised treatment.
Lagos, he said, was also seeking to reduce its dependence on overseas treatment by developing the expertise and infrastructure required to undertake complex procedures within the state.
Abayomi singled out cardiothoracic surgeon Prof Bode Falase and his team for building specialist capacity in cardiac surgery, noting that retaining highly trained professionals was essential to sustaining advanced healthcare in Nigeria.
He said the government was similarly investing in specialised facilities, including the proposed Massey Children’s Specialist Referral Centre, to expand the range of complex procedures available locally.
Such investments, he said, could reduce the need for patients to travel to countries including India, the United Kingdom, the United States and South Africa for treatment.
Abayomi also suggested that infrastructure and expertise alone would not resolve the problem of access if families remained exposed to the full cost of serious illness.
He urged residents to embrace health insurance, pointing to the state’s recently issued executive order making health insurance compulsory.
“Your health is your greatest asset. Insure it,” he said, arguing that a broad insurance pool would spread the financial burden of illness and reduce cases of families exhausting their savings or disposing of assets to fund medical treatment.
Ogunyemi said the government’s intervention programme routinely receives applications from residents seeking assistance with treatment, reimbursement or overseas medical care.
She said the volume of requests meant that the ministry could not fund every case, making assessment and prioritisation unavoidable.
The governor’s aide recalled the case of Muritala, whose treatment in India became complicated after he was stranded there amid additional medical and financial demands.
“Choosing who to help is one of the most difficult things you can ever imagine,” she said.
She credited Dr Mazeedat Erinosho and her team with reviewing applications and working to secure funding for patients considered deserving of government assistance.
Ogunyemi also stressed that the successful treatment of cardiac patients was not the work of a single specialist, commending Falase and the cardiothoracic team at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital for the collective effort involving surgeons, physicians, anaesthetists, nurses and other professionals.
For the state government, the beneficiaries’ recovery provided both evidence of the value of specialised public healthcare and a reminder of the financial vulnerability created by major illnesses—strengthening its argument that wider insurance coverage must accompany investment in medical capacity.
Credit – punch
