No fewer than seven paediatric theatres driven by solar energy have been established across the six geopolitical zones to ensure prompt provision of surgical health care services to children.
Smile Train’s Vice President and Regional Director for Africa, Nkeiruka Obi, made the disclosure at the 5th National Surgical, Obstetrics, Anesthesia and Nursing Plan (NSOANP) stakeholders forum to review the five year NSOANP 1 programme which just ended in Abuja.
Reeling out some of the achievements Smile Train has recorded in Nigeria thus far, Obi disclosed that Smile Train has supported over 50,000 families in Nigeria with free and quality cleft care in over 20 years, provided training and re-training opportunities for critical healthcare workforce and changed the landscape of surgical care by establishing theatres driven by solar to address power cuts during surgical procedures.
She said: “Over the past 20 years, Smile Train has supported over 50,000 Nigerian families ensuring free, safe, and high-quality comprehensive cleft care through financial and resource support.
“Smile Train has elevated local workforce capacity across the cleft ecosystem from surgery and anesthesia to psychosocial support and nutrition. Our patient-centred approach aligns with the six WHO health system building blocks; prioritizing infrastructure, workforce development, service delivery, and governance.
“This has created a sustainable model that ensures every individual with cleft lip or palate in Nigeria can access life-changing care without financial barriers.”
She added that NSOANP 1 has been very successful within the six domains of WHO building blocks for health system. We have been able to make very significant progress.
“On infrastructure we have been able to deploy a good number of paediatric dedicated theaters across almost all the geopolitical zones in Nigeria and these theaters are running on solar energy.
“We’re also mindful that this is clean energy where we’re reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere and we’re saving not just our planet, but also saving lives.
“We’ve been really building on workforce development. We’re still not there yet but we’re making really good efforts in upscaling essential surgical care, anaesthesia and perioperative nursing skills. We’ve also been training biomedical engineers on how to safely repair surgical instruments.
“On governance and leadership, we have also made some progress.
A member of the NSOANP Implementation Committee and leader of the NSOANP 1 review team, Justina Seyi-Olajide disclosed that through the support of Smile Train, a cleft and surgery e-registry has been established in Smile Train partner hospitals across the six geopolitical zones, to capture both cleft and other birth defects as well as surgical conditions.
“The cleft and surgery e-registry captures basically cleft cases, but has the capacity to capture other birth defects and surgical conditions as well. The aim eventually, is to have a registry that captures surgical conditions across the country, tracking it from patient presentation all through to the end of the patient care.”
On the paediatric theatres, Seyi-Olajide added that they were established in Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Abuja and Ilorin.