The Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) has convened critical oncology stakeholders and strategic partners at the maiden edition of the NSIA Oncology Summit in Lagos.
The move, according to a statement from NSIA on Wednesday, was to drive collaborations amongst partners and improve overall patient outcomes in cancer-care.
Participants at the Summit included over 200 medical professionals in oncology, over 11 Nigerian tertiary hospitals as well as over 10 external collaborators from the University of Chicago; American Oncology Institute India; American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO); Bio Ventures for Global Health (BVGH); Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre; American Association of Physicists in Medicine (‘AAPM’) and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC).
At the Summit, medical professionals split into focal groups across various specialty areas to discuss barriers to oncology care in Nigeria, possible solutions to address same and retention plans for homegrown talent.
Speaking at the Oncology Summit, the Managing Director, NSIA, Aminu Umar-Sadiq, noted that “this is an important first step in bringing together key oncology stakeholders to enhance the quality of cancer care in Nigeria.”
LEADERSHIP reports that healthcare has been an investment sector of focus for the Authority.
The NSIA set up the NSIA Healthcare Development Investment Company (NHDIC) to address medical infrastructure gaps, develop strategic collaborations to improve patient care and enhance the talent pool of medical professionals.
In 2019, NSIA established the NSIA–LUTH Cancer Centre (NLCC) – a world-class out-patient oncology centre, which has since attended to over 10,000 unique cancer patients.
A statement from NSIA further noted that the Authority also invested in two diagnostic projects co-located within the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital in Kano State and Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, Abia State.
The NSIA is now in the process of scaling the interventions, with three additional Oncology centres, 23 additional diagnostic centres and seven catheterization laboratories across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria.
NSIA’s wholly owned medical services portfolio company, Medserve, has been set up to implement the projects.
The Authority added that given the prevalence of outdated medical equipment, poor operation and maintenance of same, the NSIA has set up another wholly owned subsidiary called Equilease Systems Limited to offer alternative financial solutions to care providers, to ease the burden of high acquisition and maintenance costs of modern medical equipment through strategic partnerships with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).
Medserve and Equilease will jointly make the NSIA to be the largest provider of medical infrastructure in Nigeria.
