The Mai Mala Buni administration in Yobe has sponsored over 50,000 free dialysis for patients suffering from renal diseases in the last seven years.
Dr Baba Goni, Chief Medical Director, Yobe Teaching Hospital, Damaturu, disclosed this on Tuesday in Damaturu, the state capital.
Goni, who toured journalists through the newly completed Maternal, New-born and Child Healthcare Complex, said over 600 free dialysis were being conducted monthly in the hospital.
He said each session cost about N50,000, due to exorbitant prices of consumables.
Goni said the Buni administration also set up a dialysis centre in the hospital, to attend to high burden of kidney failure in the state, particularly among communities on the fringes of River Yobe.
The governor, he said, increased the standing payment for haemodialysis by 100 per cent to provide succour to indigent patients.
Goni said the state government was also providing free vascular access operation, a preliminary process for dialysis, which cost between N100,000 and N150,000 per session.
He recalled that Buni during a visit to the United Kingdom in 2023, invited world renowned experts to help the state in identifying the remote and immediate causes of high manifestation of renal diseases in the state.
"We have already done a preliminary work on that and we have carried out a survey and identified hot spots in some local government areas in the northern part of the state.
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"Soon we are going to conduct population based survey in the hot spots. We will analyse blood samples of members of the communities, the soil and water they consume to see if there are toxins that can affect kidney," he said.
According to Goni, the state government is working in partnership with the Urology/Nephrology Centre, Mansoura University, Egypt, to train doctors in Yobe on kidney transplanting.
He said kidney transplant locally would save cost as the expenditure for the procedure abroad exceeded N20 million, adding that the 400-bed capacity maternal, new-born and child healthcare complex built by Buni administration was the biggest in the North-East.
Goni said the facility would address high rate of under-five mortality triggered by mass exodus of health personnel due to the decade-long insurgency in the state.
According to him, the facility is designed on the tripod of service delivery, manpower training and research on prevailing health challenges in the sub region.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Buni in 2020, awarded N1.6 billion contract for the construction of the state-of-the-art facility. (NAN)
