The Edo State Government has reiterated its commitment to the provision of quality healthcare services to Edo people, noting that ongoing reforms in the health sector is aimed at redesigning the healthcare system, making the state a medical hub.
Addressing journalists in Benin City, in response to the recent media attacks by the Edo State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the planned structural reforms to be carried out by the Edo State Government within the premises of the Edo Central Hospital, Edo State Commissioner for Communication and Orientation, Hon. Andrew Adaze Emwanta JP, said the healthcare sector under the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration has received a tremendous boost within the last five years.
According to him, “the goal of the state government is not to outrightly demolish the Central Hospital as currently being canvassed by social media hirelings of the APC in Edo State, but rather to improve the environment in which healthcare will be provided to the good people of Edo State.”
Noting that the COVID-19 pandemic is still very much a challenge to the health sector in Nigeria and the world at large, he added, “For the purpose of achieving government’s developmental plan in the hospital premises, adequate arrangements are being made to ensure that all Edo people who access care at the Central Hospital are adequately catered for while certain services are been re-located.
“The accolades we got both locally and globally, as a result of our COVID-19 response between last year and this year is a manifest testimony of the determination of the Edo State Government to continuously walk the talk and give a human face to health care services in the State, irrespective of the toll the pandemic had on the State’s revenue receipts.”
The commissioner further asserted, “Governor Obaseki remains committed to progressively improving the state of infrastructure around healthcare delivery in Edo State. On September 19 last year, Edo people gave the Governor a mandate under the Making Edo Great again (MEGA) Manifesto to develop Edo State. The ongoing infrastructural development and institutional reforms within the health sector of the State are clear thematic pillars of the MEGA Manifesto of the Godwin Obaseki-led Administration.
“The recent approval and provisional accreditation of the programmes of the re-built Edo State School of Nursing/Midwifery by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, is a clear testament of the Governor’s commitment in walking the talk. So, there is no retreat or surrender on the developmental mandate freely given by Edo people to our beloved Governor, for which the health sector is not an exception.”
