
Brigadier General Dr. OTU OVIEMO OVADJE
Fss MSS DSS PJSC MBBS DA FMCA FWACS MON NOPM OFR
Chief Consultant Anaesthetist & Intensive Care Therapist
Military Hospital
LAGOS
Tel / Fax : + 234 - 1 - 2622837
Email: ovadje@excite.com | ovadje@rediffmail.com
Ovadje CV
Brigadier General Dr. Otu Oviemo Ovadje,
born 20 December 1954 is a Medical Doctor in the Nigerian Army
and a Chief consultant anaesthesiologist and intensive care
physician who works at the Military Hospital, Ikoyi-Lagos. Trained at both
the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. He is
a Fellow Medical College of Anaesthesiology, Fellow West African College of Surgion member
Association of Military Surgion of the Federal Republic of Austria and Life member
of the Association of Military Surgion of the United States (AMSUS) and has attended numerous courses
and conferences internationally.
Brigadier General Dr. Ovadje was declared the Best
African Scientist in 1995 before African Heads of States when he won the World
Intellectual Property Organisation and Organisation of African Unity Gold Medal for
scientific work designed to save women who usually die from abnormal pregnancy (ECTOPIC
GESTATION). He also won Promex Silver Medal in Geneva in April 1998. He is a two time
winner of the Chief of Army Staff Award of the Nigerian Army for professional excellence,
and various non medical awards. Recently elected into the membership of the Association of
Military Surgeons of the Federal Republic of Austria.
Brigadier General Dr. Ovadje was Chief of Delegation
-Nigeria, to the World Congress of Military Medicine at various times. Dr. Ovadje has
delivered lectures in United States of America, Germany; China; Zimbabwe, Austria and
Lesotho- South Africa. He is a member of the Technical Working Committee of the
International Congress of Military Medicine.
Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje in 1989, solved the problem
of blood salvage from body cavities by pioneering and creating a design the EATSET to
replace and improve on the gauze filtration technique as practiced in developing
countries. The EATSET device has been described as a low cost and an appropriate
technology relevant to the needs of developing countries. Its development is part of the
global effort at ensuring blood safety. The device is made up of a transparent rigid
capsule, incorporating a V – shaped micro – filter and its part arrangements
allow its adaptation to a manual source of low vacuum.
Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje, as a medical doctor undergoing specialist training in Nigeria, observed that a
lot of women during pregnancy in developing countries die from internal haemorrhage
(bleeding) arising from ruptured ectopic pregnancy.
The condition is common in developing countries and the absence of a well organized blood
transfusion service is a factor in the increased morbidity and mortality in this group of
women, many of whom cannot afford the cost of procuring blood from the laboratories. The
gauze filtration and scooping technique adopted by earlier doctors did not seem to be
attractive to most practioners who considered the technique messy and unsafe.
The initial skepticism that greeted the simplicity of the EATSET and it’s lack of
sophistication led to the invitation of Dr. Watson Williams by the World Health
Organization as consultant at the instance of the UNDP in its response to a request by Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje for financial support to enable him refine the crude device through a North _ South
collaboration.
The EATSET was used in its primitive but sterile form by Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje to save
intraperitoneal blood from 12 patients as presented at the world congress of the
International Committee of Military Medicine (ICMM) in Augsburg, Germany in June 1994, and
Published in the journal of the ICMM in 1995.
The UNDP sponsored the refinement of Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje’s EATSET in 1994, under the executive
of the World Health Organization. By April 1995, the equipment was refined and in-vitro
trials were conducted successfully at the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital by Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje, Mr. Fell and Professor Asalor, Professor Akinsete and Professor Dorothy
Foulkes-Crabbe, (Chairman of the African Chapter of the World Federation of societies of
Anesthesiologist.) (WFSA) both approved of the work.
Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje organized an International Scientific Conference and Workshop (April 29 –
31 1995 sponsored by the UNDP, WHO and the Federal Ministry of Health to determine the
degree of the problem of heamorrhage in pregnant women in developing countries. About 430
medical professionals, (Doctors, Nurses, Hospital, Administrators, Scientists and
Industrialist attended from Nigeria, Ghana, Switzerland, United Kingdom and India. His
presentation of techniques of auto-transfusion and the EATSET to medical doctors
undergoing specialist training at an OPEC funded conference at the University of Lagos
Teaching Hospital (1990) and during a seminar organized by the Commonwealth Defence
Science Organization at the Defence Headquarters in 1991 contributed in endearing the
EATSET to many of his professional colleagues.
Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje’s work in the management of ectopics in developing countries was publicly
acknowledged by Government. UNDP and WHO whose awareness of the need for a simplified, low
cost device such as the EATSET in developing countries increased. Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje won the 1995
OAU-WIPO Invention Award in recognition of his significant contribution to African
innovation in the field of Health Care. A Gold Medal was presented to Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje during the
OAU summit in Addis-Ababa.
Prof Morel’s report from the Geneva University Hospital Cantonal confirmed the need
for the EATSET and of its usefulness in clinical practice. Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje in 1996 won the
National Council of Health and Ministerial Award for professional excellence and for his
contribution to health technology
Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje won the World Bank institute award in February 2000 after he was classified
as one of the top 339 finalists at the developmental market place in Washington DC.
He became the first African to win the World Health Organisation Sasakawa Award in the
year 2000.
He won the national honour of Member of order of the Niger MON |

Winner Organization of African Unity / World
Intellectual Property Organization Best African Inventor Gold Medal Award 1995.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje Winner
Promex Medal 1998
Geneva, Switzerland .

First African Winner
WHO SASAKAWA Award, Geneva, Switzerland, 2000.

Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje receiving award from professor
Marcellas Contreras President Blood Transfusion Society of England at The Dorchester Hotel
London, 2001.

Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje Post award speech. The Dorchester
Hotel London, 2001.

Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje with Minister and VIPs Augsburg,
Germany, 1994.

Brigadier General Dr Oviemo Ovadje and Dr. Mrs. Naomi (wife) with the
famous PLO Leader Yaser Arafat in 1995.

Col. Ovadje sandwiched by Mr.Sam Swansen (A
Horney At Law) Mrs.Donna Swansen and a family friend in Philadephia, USA.

Sandwiched between two international trade mark,
patent and intellectual property experts in Abuja, 2001.

Col. Ovadje and another Anasthetic Colleague at
the Albert Einsten Hospital in Philadelphia USA, 1994.

Dr Ovadje receives commendation from UN SEC GEN Dr. Kofi Annan |