Kano State Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf has flagged off open heart surgeries for patients with cardiac malfunction,leadership report.
The initiative is being sponsored by the Saudi Arabian government in partnership with the Muslim World League and Aminu Kano Teaching hospital (AKTH) .
Governor Yusuf re-iterated the commitment of the state government governmental organisations, spirited individuals and philanthropists willing to assist in providing specialized training for health personnel and medical care for patients in need of such services.
Engineer Abba expressed happiness that the initiative will augment efforts of the state government in giving the health sector the deserved attention.
“We are very much delighted to have you in Kano for this gigantic assistance. Kano is the most populous state in Nigeria with over 21 million people. We have the most vulnerable people, downtrodden masses that do not have any means of taking care of their health needs,” he said.
He added; “We will stick to our campaign promise of building general hospitals across the 44 local governments and primary health care centres across the state and the re-introduce mobile clinics to cater for the people in the rural areas who are in need of medical attention free of charge.”
The head of the medical team from Saudi Arabia, Dr Utman Al-uthman Saad, said the medical team comprised 20 cardiac surgeons who will perform surgeries and pledged their best to achieve the set goals.
Chief medical director of Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Professor Abdulrahman Abba Sheshe, said the intervention was timely as there was increase in heart diseases especially in northern Nigeria due to the prevalence of hypertension.
