Kwali General Hospital gets chest clinic

The clinic, commissioned and handed over to the hospital’s management, was built with the FCT Administration providing land, permits, manpower, electricity and security.
The hospital’s  medical director, Dr Jude Okonkwo, said the clinic, equipped with standard x-ray machines, wards, treatment rooms and laboratories, was crucial to the area council but would need more trained manpower to address Kwali’s health needs, especially in managing TB and HIV/AIDS.
The clinic is the 20th to be built by Chevron’s Agbami partners-Star Deepwater, Famfa Oil, NNPC, Statoil and PetroleoBrasileiro, which operate Agbami field, considered Chevron’s largest oil field in deepwater West Africa.
Since it was awarded in 2004 and started production in 2008, Agbami contributes some 250,000 barrels of oil a day at its peak to Nigeria’s total oil production, said Deji Haastrup, Chevron’s general manager for policy, government and public affairs, who spoke on behalf of Star Deepwater’s director, Jeffrey Ewing.
The field is some 113 kilometres offshore Nigeria, but “we view the entire country as the Agbami community,” he added.
The chest clinic, in Kwali General Hospital’s premises, is the 20th donated by Agbami, which also plans to site four more at existing health facilities around the country before the end of the year.
“Feedback reaching us shows that the intervention in health has brought significant improvement to people’s lives and empowered people across the country,” said Dr Olubukola Fagade, Chevron’s Medical Director.
Dr Fagade expressed hope that the clinic will improve diagnosis and monitoring of TB, reduce risk of TB in Abuja and its surroundings, and eliminate hazards of spread and co-infection [with HIV/AIDS] which could increase risks or result in deaths.
FCT Health and Human Services Secretary, Dr Ademola Onakomaiya, said the FCT’s acquisition of seven GeneXpert machines through partnership with private sector to increase TB case findings in the last year and half, indicated that government alone cannot provide all required services for Abuja’s rapidly growing population.