Speeches

Handing Over The Lagos Toll Gate Trauma Centre At Toll Gate, Ikeja

May 11, 2010 - Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here not simply to dedicate a building or hospital, but to demonstrate our resolve to lead change and take steps to correct what we do not accept.

This building, the Lagos Trauma Centre, and its strategic location are symbols of that resolve.

Year on year, we have rolled out statistics about how many lives are lost in our country as a result of fatalities of road traffic accidents.

Whilst I acknowledge that efforts are being made at various levels of Government to prevent accidents, the reality is that preventive strategies alone will not save lives because even if we succeed in getting over all the human elements and errors that cause accidents, there will still be road traffic accidents that are unforeseeable and therefore unpreventable.

The truth is that there will still be accidents due to mechanical failures, natural disasters and so much more and there will still be victims of road traffic accidents who must be saved from avoidable deaths.

Therefore, while policies and programmes like driver education at our Drivers' Institutes, LASTMA traffic monitoring agency, our Traffic Marshall Scheme, advocacy developments are welcome and needed, they will not on their own suffice to discharge our obligation to save Iives and properties.

This is the reason we are gathered here today, to deepen our commitment to saving lives arising from road traffic accidents by handing over this 20 (Twenty) bed Trauma Centre, located at the beginning of the Lagos end of the 100km Lagos-Ibadan Expressway which is eye of our strategic road transport gateway to other parts of the country.

This facility with its complement of staff brings curative and treatment capacity closer to the highways to enable victims get prompt medical attention to stabilize them and hopefully save their lives.

The truth is that the question whether accident victims will survive and recover, depends not only on the level of medical care that they get but most importantly on how quickly they get it.

Just a little about 2 years ago, I was driving into Lagos on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway when an accident occurred ahead of us.

We had to stop to help the victims with the ambulance and towing truck that I had attached permanently to my convoy in order to rescue victims. That was the day the necessity for this kind of Trauma Centre came to my mind

My colleagues and I in the Executive Council debated on it and agreed on it. We commissioned one of our medical contractors, Messrs Deux Project and as they say, the rest is history.

As I hand over this facility today, to the glory of God and in the hope that it will become a strategic resource in the process of saving lives, I wish to assert that it is not enough for Lagos alone to do this, and I do sincerely hope that States that share boundaries with us will be persuaded in the way that we have been, to make investments of this type at their State boundaries of this highway and other highways.

It is therefore my honour and pleasure to declare this facility open for the benefit of our people and to the glory of God.

Thank you for listening.

Eko o ni baje o!

Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Governor of Lagos State