Obaseki pledges sustained investment in healthcare

Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, said, yesterday, his government was focused on reforming and upgrading the state’s primary healthcare system, ensuring swift, affordable and quality medical service delivery to Edo people.

Obaseki, who spoke with journalists in Benin City, said the government plans to have at least one standard primary healthcare centre in every ward in the state with well-trained staff and technology before 2024.

He said: “In the area of healthcare, we have just started, even though we have done quite a lot of work in the sector. Our focus has always been on basic care, just like we did with our education system; we are fixing those areas where our people have the first interaction with our healthcare system.

“Primary healthcare reform is our priority and by the time we are leaving in 2024, at the minimum, we should have at least one primary healthcare centre in every ward in Edo with well-trained staff and technology that tracks the quality of service rendered.”

Reassuring his administration’s commitment to transforming Edo into a health hub, Obaseki added: “We see Edo as the health hub in the next five years because we have everything that it takes to become a hub for healthcare.

“We have revamped the Edo Specialist Hospital and ignored the manipulations from detractors who try to make an issue of our decision to bring down a 90-year-old hospital and move it into a five-year-old hospital.

“So, we are transforming the Specialist Hospital and building a new Stella Obasanjo Hospital,” he stated.
MEANWHILE, the Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, has flagged off the state’s Second Phase Outbreak Response (OBR) for Circulating Vaccine-Derived Polio Virus Type 2.

The ceremony, which was held at Eyaen Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC), Benin City, Uhunmwode Local Government Area of Edo State, kick-started a coordinated response to routine immunisation.

Shaibu expressed appreciation to the Ministry of Health, agencies and their partners in the state, the World Health Organisation (WHO), National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), and Africa Centres for Disease Control, among others, for their support towards improving health care in the state.

He hailed mothers in the state for their courage in bringing their children for routine immunisation and urged those yet to take the COVID-19 vaccine to do so for their safety.