Due to the COVID -19 Pandemic, it has been a frightening and volatile period globally. Many lives have been lost and many economies at the macro and microlevel have been hard hit. At the end of this onslaught, it is hoped that the world would become more resilient and empathetic with a more focused and structured desire to respond to the needs of our communities.

Outreach Hospital’s vision is to save the lives of women, children and babies in Nigeria. We started our journey 10 years ago, determined to make a difference in the Acute Care health space. Currently, we have 4 branches in Lagos and 1 in Delta State with a total bed capacity of 62 beds.  In the next two months, we should be opening the doors to a 60 bed hospital in the Lekki Axis. We have been able to save 160,000 babies and children and had 2,000 deliveries in 10 years.

We currently have 20 doctors, 40 nurses, 10 Laboratory scientists and 12 scientists with 80 administrative staff who are working tirelessly above and beyond the duty of care to deliver medical and surgical patient-centred care to our clients. The system design of Outreach Operations lays a strong emphasis on competence training of all staff to be able to deliver a safe and effective health system.

The Outreach Health System is valued based, working continuously to improve the health outcomes of our patients together with delivering affordable care, regulated by a strong governance system.

One of our niche markets has been the care of babies born too soon, too small or extremely sick. This has been the most challenging area of our service offering, but we have persisted in crafting out a low-cost advanced neonatal service. We currently have 100 graduate babies from our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) – babies that were less than 28 weeks who have survived, with the smallest preterm baby born at 24 weeks weighing 600gms.

We are making ourselves more relevant to the communities we serve by now offering affordable ‘High Dependency Care’ admission programme to the hospitals that refer neonates to us. The use of our Children’s Ambulance Retrieval Service is also encouraged to prevent our referred babies from arriving in a decompensated state.

Based on success with an innovative School Heath Service in a pilot sample of 4 schools in Lagos State, we are now designing an extensive school health ecosystem with 145 schools in Lagos State over the next 12 months.

Children are our future and women are the foundation upon which a good society is built on. Access to effective and safe healthcare is the right of every child and pregnant woman. It is our hope that the government would soon enter into PPP arrangements with the Outreach Group, enabling a health financing mechanism for families that would allow access without the need for payment at the point of care.

In the next 10 years, we hope to have a second-tier hospital in each local government in Lagos state and 150 primary Care Centres in Nigeria.

This expansion and transformation will be ennabled by ICT, Digital technology and a Central Control Office with a Simulation Training Centre run by highly skilled workforce from local content and senior Nigerian health practitioners in the diaspora.

We are passionate about impact and change in Nigeria for we believe in this great country.

Long live Nigeria!

Dr Efunbo Dosekun

CEO- Outreach Hospital Group