The University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) has discharged the patients involved in the first open heart surgery performed by the hospital.
Aishat Jubril, 15 and Kamalat Balogun, 7, were discharged from UITH’s amenity ward around 2:45pm on August 13, after spending two weeks recuperating.
In a statement released by UITH, the hospital appreciated Nigerians for their support, saying it is proud “that the hospital got it right at the very first trial, a major breakthrough in the history of this hospital and indeed Nigeria as a nation”.
The statement said though UITH is not the first hospital to perform such task in Nigeria, its achievement in that regard would go a long way in highlighting the development of the country’s health sector.
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“We don’t lay claim to the fact that the UNILORIN is the first in the nation’s history to have been the first hospital to achieve this feat, but we are celebrating our contribution to medical and surgical knowledge in the country and the world at large,” the statement read.
“With a lot of commitment and doggedness, Nigeria as a nation can be a haven of sort to all other countries in Africa in the field of orthodox medicine and surgical techniques.”
The corrective operations were performed two weeks ago by doctors at the cardio-thoracic unit of the hospital in collaboration with a medical team from Apollos Children Hospital Chennai in India.
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Abdulwaheed Olatinwo, chief medical director of the hospital, expressed delight over the development, thanking the staff of the UITH, for their dedication to duty.
“We thank you all for this feat. We particularly thank Almighty God for His support. Nobody is inferior or superior among all those who contributed to the success of today. You all gave your best possible care to the patients,” he said.
Olanrewaju Adedoyin, chairman of the committee which supervised the surgery, said the hospital contributed 75 per cent of the N1. 8 million which was spent on the operation.
In delight, Jubril, one of the patients, said she would like to be a surgeon in future.
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3 comments
Congratulations to the amiable CMD of UITH. A high level of commitment to increasing the capacity of our Teaching Hospitals to grow beyond rendering “routine” services to handling more sophisticated and life-saving procedures is the way to go for our tertiary healthcare centres. Hope and Health have been restored and the discomfort suffered from birth by Aishat and little Kamalat have been completely alleviated with just a few hours of surgery.A big congratulations to Prof Olatinwo for providing the enabling environment and leadership; a big congratulations to Dr P.O. Adeoye and the UITH cardiac care team.
A step in the right direction. Good job to the team of specialists and kuddos to the commitment by the management headed by the CMD. This tempo needs to be sustained. Good job!
Words of Leonardo da Vinci come to my mind here:
‘I have been impressed with d urgency of doing,knowing is not enough we must apply,being wishing is not enough,we must do’.
Again,he said ‘It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back & let things happen to them,they went out n happened to things’
UITH has taken a giant stride in open heart surgery and I hope d tempo is sustained.
A Big congratulations to d CMD Prof A.W.O.,cardio-thoracic unit n d entire UITH community as a whole #respect