Dr. Adegbajo Odedina once planned to join the wave of Nigerian doctors leaving the country. But he walked away from that plan and from a comfortable life abroad to come home with a mission.
Faced with Nigeria’s staggering child and neonatal mortality rates, the pediatrician and neonatologist set out to build something different: a hospital that treats only children. What started as a modest 9-to-5 clinic in GRA, Ikeja, has grown into Haven Pediatrics, a 24-hour mono-specialist facility. Here, there are no adult wards. Just pediatric consultants, a NICU, and every sub-specialty a child might need, all under one roof. For premature babies and children with complex conditions, it is a place built for one purpose: to give them specialists, equipment, and round-the-clock care and a real fighting chance. Writes MARY NNAH
At 1am on a quiet night, the phone at Haven Pediatrics rang. A baby, just 4 days old, was being rushed in from a general hospital in the Iyana Ipaja axis. The child was already on a makeshift “bottle CPAP” – tubes in a bottle of water being used to push oxygen.
“We see this too often,” said Dr. Adegbajo Odedina, Chief Medical Director of Haven Pediatrics. “By the time some babies get to us, they have lost precious hours.”
