Zenith Medical and Kidney Centre Abuja: Leading Kidney Treatment Hospital in Nigeria and West Africa Now becomes Tourist Attraction.

Dr Olalekan Olatise Nigerian Consultant Nephrologist/Transplantation Physician has established a kidney treatment medical centre in Abuja for treating kidney disease. Kidney is becoming the next pandemic throughout the world.

The hospital called Zenith Medical & Kidney centre established in 2011 prides itself in having experienced medical experts who provide compassionate and outstanding expertise in the treatment of kidneys and it has become the leading kidney treatment in West Africa.
Today Africa News West Africa Correspondent, Afolabi  Osho caught up with the Chief Medical Director  Dr.  Olalekan Olatise how he has made his facilities attractive in Abuja and below is the full excerpt of the interview.
Afolabi Osho -TAN West Africa: Dr. Olalekan Olatise why are you focused on kidney disease?
 Dr Olalekan Olatise- CMD Zenith Medical & Kidney Centre:  I am in love with caring kidney disease, from days of training as medical student at graduation, I decided to specialize in nephrology  which is a sub specialist in medicine knowing fully well that kidney is a disease that grows into pandemic around the world.
I realized that Nigerians will need this kind of healthcare. I came back home to Nigeria to setup Kidney treatment centre where Nigerian patents will have good healthcare and I do it with a passion.

Afolabi Osho-TAN, West Africa: Dr. Olalekan Olatise- What is then your mission to set up the Zenith Medical & Kidney Centre in Abuja?

Dr. Olalekan Olatise: I came back to Nigeria to cater for the needs of patients with Kidney disease. I realised that there's  need to take this seriously,  so I setup the Zenith Medical & Kidney Centre  to treat patients with  compassion and  we established  one of the best medical centre in the country and West Africa. 
That’s my goal for having Zenith Medical and Kidney Centre as the best in Africa.
As you can now see that we are trying to do something which is not commonly done in the country. One of them is our molecular laboratory where we can check or match the DNA of any person who wants any form of organ with another person for organ transplantation easily now. 
It is a breakthrough for us and gradually we shall move towards making it the best hospital in the World. If you can check out the international Nephrologist Society, you will see that we have been certified as one of the International Nephrologist intervention training centre in the world and we are the only one representing Africa among the 12 centres in the world.
Afolabi Osho-TAN-West Africa:  Dr.Olalekan Olatise, What do you understand by medical Tourism?
 Dr. Olalekan Olatise:: What I understand by medical tourism is that when someone  goes to another Country for medical treatments in hope to get treatments that is medical tourism. 
Afolabi Osho TAN- West Africa: Why do want reversing medical tourism through medical services?
Dr. Olalekan Olatise: One way this country is losing most of its foreign exchange is through medical tourism.  I hope the government can realise this. Someone put like this that Nigerian is losing 1.2 billion US Dollars each year. The education abroad too is another way we are losing foreign exchange. If the country Nigeria can save this amount, it will help her economy.
But the government should not just look only at the oil sectors as earning. You see, both health and education are key to human development indices of a country and critical to them to help the development of a country. 
 If we are spending 1.2 billion dollars on medical tourism abroad it is not acceptable at all to the country.
But government should build more state of art hospital in the country to curb revenue lose. 
.We shouldn’t be losing revenue to medical tourism abroad if we have state art of hospitals in the country; we need not to travel abroad. 
No one is expected that 213 million people will need medical services abroad.  Nobody is going here and help solve our problem. 
A lot of these revenues are loss to the medical and educational tourism. My advice is that we take this seriously. 
This hospital is trying to play it by reversing medical tourism in Nigeria and a lot of patients are gradually bringing their patents in West Africa sub region, the likes UK, USA and many other places have already brought their patents for kidney disease treatments.

Afolabi Osho, TAN- West Africa: What is the capacity of the Hospital? 
Dr. Olalekan Olatise:: At the moment the hospital is having 100 beds,  5 intensive care units (ICU), 12 High Dependency Units  and  36 Dialysis units and  we have coped very well  with patients and our record of attendance of outpatients is 39,000 this is last year alone.
 At present we are doing an average of 15 kidney transplant monthly and 15,000 kidney transplants yearly.  Except for the Convid year where the turnout was low because of the restrictions.  
We are right now building a 200 bed facilities behind the hospital.
Afolabi Osho TAN- West Africa: How do you think Abuja can be remodelled as major Medical Tourism hub in West Africa and Africa? 
Dr.  Olalekan Olatise: Abuja can really be remodelled into Medical tourism hub in Africa because it has airport which is international airport, and also with the daily regional air flights can  really develop Abuja into Medical tourism hub and it will be useful for many patients from many smaller Africa countries coming for medical services here. 
 There are  many private hospitals specialized in a specific disease condition like us known for kidney treatment & transplantation, and taking procedures to treatment of patients for one disease from many places. I believe the future is good and bright for the country.