Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has introduced a comprehensive healthcare roadmap, revealing that the state requires 40,000 doctors to adequately serve its growing population. Currently, the state has only 7,000 doctors and faces a similar shortage of 40,000 nurses. Speaking at the 2nd Eko Health Convention, the governor emphasized that the next phase of reform focuses on building sustainable systems that balance quality and accessibility.
Sanwo-Olu stressed that the administration aims to create institutions that endure, rather than just delivering individual projects. A central part of this strategy is the Lagos Smart Health Information Platform (SHIP), which aims to digitize patient records across general and teaching hospitals. So far, 30 percent of this digital integration is complete, allowing clinical data to follow patients and enabling better medical decision-making.
The state’s insurance initiative, Ilera Eko, has now enrolled over 1.5 million residents, with women accounting for more than half of the beneficiaries. Additionally, the LASHMA Assistance in Distress program has successfully intervened in 18 emergency cases since March, prioritizing life-saving care regardless of a patient’s financial situation. To address chronic staff shortages, the government is establishing a new University of Medicine and Health Sciences to boost local training.
Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, noted that the government is also working to regulate the informal health sector and curb self-medication. He highlighted that malaria prevalence in the state has dropped significantly, now standing at approximately 2 percent. The state is actively promoting a brain gain strategy to encourage healthcare professionals living abroad to return and support the local medical sector.
