Science, Medicine & Engineering
Landmark
Oluyombo Awojobi
1951 – 2015
Built the surgical equipment his rural hospital could not afford
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Nigeria Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A rural surgeon who, rather than wait for equipment that was never coming, made his own — a centrifuge from a bicycle wheel, an operating table, a hospital in Eruwa that worked because he improvised it.
Oluyombo Adetilewa Awojobi was born on 1 March 1951 and became a Nigerian rural surgeon, researcher, inventor and humanitarian.
Working at his own hospital at Eruwa in Oyo State, far from the supply chains of urban medicine, he pioneered the local design and manufacture of appropriate medical devices — improvising equipment from what was available, including a manually operated centrifuge built from a bicycle wheel, and publishing the designs so others could copy them. He died on 17 April 2015.
Working at his own hospital at Eruwa in Oyo State, far from the supply chains of urban medicine, he pioneered the local design and manufacture of appropriate medical devices — improvising equipment from what was available, including a manually operated centrifuge built from a bicycle wheel, and publishing the designs so others could copy them. He died on 17 April 2015.
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