The University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan has assured of support and collaboration on the establishment of a medical equipment remanufacture centre in Nigeria for the West African sub-region.
Chief Medical Director, UCH, Professor Jesse Otegbayo, stated this during a courtesy visit by Professor Akinwale Coker, the Principal Investigator of the project and a professor of civil and biomedical engineering from the University of Ibadan and Professor Winifred Ijomah, the Director of the Scottish Institute for Remanufacturing and a lecturer with the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, who are spearheading the project.
Prof. Otegbayo averred that going the equipment remanufacture route will help close the existing medical equipment shortfalls in Nigeria’s health sector.
He said, “We are well disposed to the ideas and principles of remanufacturing and, like you said, it is the way to go for us since we don’t have the wherewithal. To me, it will be a kind of strategy for closing the equipment gap in the health sector, which we lack in many sectors of our healthcare delivery – primary, secondary and tertiary.
“I want to pledge, on behalf of the management of the hospital, that whatever we need to do as an institution, you can take it for granted; we will support all the things that you are bringing on board. Be rest assured that we at UCH are ready to work with you.”
Prof. Otegbayo also noted that the hospital’s management is in the process of establishing a school of biomedical engineering, which has undergone assessment by the National Board for Technological Education. He, however, accreditation won’t be granted until the school’s building and necessary facilities are completed.
Prof. Ijomah had earlier explained that the project, funded by the Royal Society, London, aims to develop a strategy to ensure affordable and sustainable healthcare for developing countries.
She added that the project would save Nigeria foreign exchange spent on medical tourism, save the environment, create jobs, especially for medium and low-skilled labour, as well as encourage indigenous workforce through knowledge transfer and reverse engineering.
Prof. Ijomah said the choice of Nigeria for the establishment of the centre is because of the project’s potential impact given Nigeria’s population and economic potential among countries in the sub-region.
She said, “If you were to produce something using remanufacturing, as opposed to conventional manufacturing, you get the same quality of product at 80 percent cost savings, which means you can reduce the selling price of your product and get competitive advantage.
“There are also environmental benefits. If you make something, 85 percent of the total weight could have come from components that would otherwise have ended in the landfill. So, if you look at the amount of waste lying in Nigeria, those could be cannibalised into the remanufacturing programme to clean our environment.
“It also has social advantages like the creation of jobs and the creation of wealth across the board but particularly for low- to medium-skilled labour, which we have in abundance. Also, we save our foreign exchange because using remanufacturing, we are not buying new all the time; we are using our old products, re-building them and putting them into the market.
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“Apart from saving foreign exchange, we would also use remanufacturing to reduce health tourism. Currently, over 5,000 Nigerians per month go abroad for medical tourism, which is money we haven’t got and we can’t really afford that loss of foreign exchange. And our educated health professionals leave and go abroad in order to gain access to the medical equipment that they need to do their job.
“It enables us to create an indigenous workforce by transfer technology from looking at the old products when they have failed.
“The whole idea of this project is to look at how we can enable affordable, quality healthcare in developing countries because the key thing needed to provide healthcare is equipment. And very often, the reason that we have poor healthcare is because the equipment are not there.
“Currently, 80 percent of the total world supply of medical equipment is in developed countries that make up less than 20 percent of the global population. The key ways that we have tried to address that is by giving developing countries second-hand equipments as donations from developed countries or developing these products, which are specific for developing countries. Those products that are developed specifically for developing countries are of poorer functionality. If we look at the donations, according to the World Health Organisation, 70 percent of the donated equipments to developing countries don’t actually function, either because we don’t have the expertise to use them, there are missing parts and sometimes, because they are not in sync with our clime.
“This now led us to see if we can use remanufacturing to drive down production costs by 80 percent. This is a way that we can use to plug this gap in medical equipment in developing countries whilst creating jobs and improving our environment.
“The reason that we chose Nigeria as a case study is because of the potential impact; one in four Sub-Saharan Africans are Nigerians while one in six are South Africans. So, if we can develop this framework and set up a centre of expertise, we can then export to other areas of the African continent.”
Also speaking, Prof. Coker said the choice of seeking a partnership with UCH is due to its position as a hospital of note in the country and the West African sub-region.
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