Richard Elesho
Kogi has procured a hospital based Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment (HBOT) chamber which the state government described as the first in Nigeria.
According to the state government, with the acquisition, Nigeria becomes the fifth country in Africa that can boast of such a sophisticated medical equipment.
The Kogi state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Saka Audu who disclosed this said this in a statement described the acquisition of the medical equipment as a great news for Nigerian patients who hitherto had to travel abroad for treatments.
“Whoever has been following the trend of achievements in Kogi State Health Sector must have now seen the purposeful move to turn the State to a choice destination for Health tourism
“This is only possible with much thanks to the determination of His Excellency Alh. Yahaya Bello, to revamp the State’s Health sector and change the old narrative of a moribund sector that supervised substandard services
“HBOT chamber is a very useful equipment that can help in healing people with both internal and external life threatening injuries as well as in health complications like Air or gas embolism, brain and sinus infections.
“Other uses of the equipment are necrotizing soft tissue infections, arterial insufficiency or low blood flow in the arteries, radiation injury especially as a result of cancer treatment, anaemia, osteomyelitis, gas gangrene, carbon monoxide poisoning, burns, skin grafts etc.
“HBOT is becoming increasingly popular and mostly used as adjuvant therapy to conventional treatment/management of some life threatening conditions to minimise healing times,” he said.