President Bola Tinubu has expressed optimism that the newly commissioned $350 million African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE) in Abuja will revolutionize healthcare delivery in Nigeria and across the continent.
The state-of-the-art facility, developed by Afreximbank in partnership with King’s College Hospital, London, was inaugurated yesterday as a solution to medical tourism, brain drain, and limited access to specialized care.
Represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, Tinubu highlighted the centre’s groundbreaking features, including West Africa’s largest stem cell laboratory.
“With the planned medical and nursing school on the campus, and with partners ranging from King’s College London to the University of Wisconsin, AMCE is laying the foundation for a new generation of African medical specialists, who would no longer be exported but empowered at home,” the President stated. He described the project as Africa’s bold statement of readiness to compete with global healthcare standards.
The facility’s Phase 1 offers 170 inpatient beds, with expansion to 500 beds planned in Phase 2. It boasts cutting-edge technology including Nigeria’s only 3 Tesla MRI machine and a 256-Slice CT scanner for ultra-precise diagnostics. AMCE CEO Brian Deavers emphasized: “No West African should ever need a passport to find a health facility.”
Afreximbank President Prof. Benedict Oramah revealed the centre will also host West Africa’s largest biobank, positioning it as a continental reference hospital. The commissioning follows Nigeria’s December 2023 health sector initiative which secured $2.2 billion for renovating 17,000 primary health centers and training 120,000 health workers.
Tinubu described AMCE as critical to his administration’s healthcare transformation agenda, declaring: “This centre is a promise of the continent, and a statement that Africa is prepared to compete with the best medical services around the world.”
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