The Chief Medical Director, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Prof. Adetokunbo Fabamwo, said the hospital’s obstetric unit – Ayinke House, records an average of 2,500 childbirths monthly.

Mr Fabamwo made the disclosure during an interview on Sunday in Lagos.

Ayinke House is a maternal healthcare facility located within the premises of LASUTH and reputed as Nigeria’s biggest maternity hospital after it was upgraded from an 80-bed facility to a 170-bed furnished with state-of-the-art medical equipment.

Mr Fabamwo said that delivery rate had declined compared to previous 3,000 per month child deliveries at the Ayinke House.

“It’s now low compared to what used to happen in the past, but I believe that the economy has actually cautioned people to limit the sizes of their families, so not too many people are eager to have babies anymore. There was a time many years back that we used to do 3,000 per month deliveries,” he said.

He emphasised that pregnant women are given health education during antenatal care and also counselled on family planning and child spacing after delivery at the hospital’s family planning clinic.

On how Ayinke House had assisted the state to reduce its maternal morbidity and mortality rate, Mr Fabamwo said that the facility as a multispecialty medical centre provides comprehensive maternal services and professional training for medical students and resident doctors in the state.

According to Mr Fabamwo, the hospital performs normal routine low-risk and high-risk deliveries associated with pregnancies at its intensive care facility.

“We participate in the normal routine deliveries of cases that are low-risk essentially to cater for the training of student midwives who come here from some of the universities that we partner with. But over and beyond that, more importantly, is our high-risk cases, which is essentially what we deal with as a number of general hospitals and private hospitals refer high-risk cases to us to manage. This is because in this hospital, we can offer multidisciplinary care. If a patient needs a cardiologist or other specialists, we can easily call them in because we are on the same premises. So cases that need multidisciplinary care, advanced care all benefit from timely interventions and that has helped the state in reducing maternal morbidity and mortality,” he said.

The CMD said that Ayinke House boasts of an ultra-modern obstetric unit, recalling that it was re-inaugurated in 2019 after some infrastructural upgrades.

According to him, the centre is equipped with four operating theatres, one emergency theatre, a 20-bed delivery suite, an intensive care room and 22 consultant obstetricians and gynaecologists.

The CMD added that care provided at Ayinke House, in conjunction with the Lagos Island Maternity Hospital, and the different obstetric units in general hospitals, contribute to reducing maternal mortality and morbidity rates in state hospitals.

Mr Fabamwo emphasised that improving the well-being of mothers, infants, and children was an important public health goal for LASUTH and Lagos State.

He restated the hospital’s commitment to continue to offer quality, affordable and modern healthcare services to all citizens in Lagos, Nigeria and Africa.

(NAN)