Janet Ogundepo
The African Democratic Congress governorship candidate for the 2027 Lagos election, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, has pledged to establish 245 emergency response centres across the state, each equipped with two ambulances.
He also promised to increase healthcare funding to nearly 15 per cent of the state budget if elected governor.
Rhodes-Vivour said the proposed centres would improve access to emergency care and reduce deaths associated with patients moving from one health facility to another in search of oxygen and other essential services.
He also promised to prioritise preventive healthcare, improve the salaries of doctors, train support staff and introduce artificial intelligence to strengthen diagnosis and the capacity of the state’s healthcare system.
The candidate made the commitments on Sunday during the Lagos Governorship Debate organised by the Nigeria Debate Consortium, a coalition of media organisations comprising The PUNCH, Channels Television, TVC News, TheCable and Vanguard Newspaper, ahead of the 2027 governorship election.
Responding to a question on how he would address healthcare funding and ensure that budgetary allocations translated into better services, Rhodes-Vivour said, “Our focus will first be to establish emergency response in every ward in Lagos State. So that’s 245 emergency response centres in Lagos State with two ambulances because there are too many people dying because they are moving from one place to the other trying to find oxygen. So that would have a direct impact on the people of Lagos.”
He said his administration would also focus on preventive healthcare to identify and manage health conditions before they progressed to more complicated stages requiring secondary care.
Rhodes-Vivour further noted that the proposed community wellness centres would educate residents on accessing quality healthcare, seeking proper diagnosis and avoiding reliance on traditional remedies for conditions requiring medical attention.
He said the centres would also promote exercise, healthy eating and social interaction, particularly among retirees and pensioners.
“So we also have exercise machines and a wellness centre that is tailored towards our retirees, our pensioners, because a lot of people are also dying of loneliness. There are so many families that have japa from this country and have become WhatsApp families. We need to build community again at the ward level, encourage wellness, encourage education on what to eat, exercise and how to live a healthy life,” the ADC Lagos gubernatorial candidate noted.
The ADC candidate said the preventive health and wellness initiatives would reduce pressure on other healthcare facilities by encouraging residents to take better care of their health and seek medical attention early.
On healthcare financing, he promised to increase the state’s allocation to the sector to almost the 15 per cent benchmark under the Abuja Declaration.
“That said, we’re going to invest heavily in health care, take it as close to 15 per cent as possible, improve the salaries of our doctors, train support staff and also bring artificial intelligence to help diagnose and improve the capacity of our health care system,” he said.
In his manifesto, Rhodes-Vivour also pledged to provide Lagos residents with accessible, affordable and quality healthcare services close to where they live.
He promised to partner with private health practitioners to improve public healthcare delivery across primary, secondary and tertiary facilities, while improving compensation for doctors, nurses and other government-employed health workers.
The manifesto stated, “A great health system is one of the ways to protect everybody, including the vulnerable and children. We will prevent rather than cure the modus operandi of the health system.”
He further promised to expand the state’s health insurance scheme to include annual medical check-ups and make routine health checks an integral part of primary healthcare.
“Our statutory health insurance will be scaled up to include annual health check-ups. We will make annual checks an integral part of Primary Health Care, perhaps the first such in the world. The second thing that will be central to our health system is the promotion of healthy nutrition,” the manifesto stated.
Other proposed initiatives include installing digital and data infrastructure in all primary healthcare facilities to support data-driven decision-making and expanding the Lagos State Health Scheme by linking it to the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency database.
The ADC candidate also pledged to work with health technology companies to reduce barriers to accessing healthcare and improve service delivery.
PUNCH Healthwise reports that twenty-five years after the adoption of the Abuja Declaration, Nigeria, the host and signatory nation, still fails to meet the target of allocating at least 15 per cent of its national budget to health.
Federal health allocations have consistently remained between 4 and 6 per cent of the national budget, resulting in chronic underfunding that has weakened public health infrastructure, left many rural primary healthcare facilities poorly equipped or non-functional, and exacerbated the migration of doctors and nurses abroad in search of better opportunities.
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