Orji vows to end medical trips abroad by people of the State Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State, has vowed to end the oversea medical tourism by the people of the state by equipping public hospitals in the state with the state-of-the-art medical facilities found in any renowned hospital abroad. Orji who made the declaration Saturday, while commissioning the multi-million naira cardiac centre and other projects executed by his administration at the Amachara annex of the Abia Specialist and Diagnostic Hospital decried the capital flight involved in oversea medical trips. Other projects commissioned at the hospital were a 100-bedded ward, administrative block, house officers hostel, an intensive care unit, accident and emergency department with ambulances, and a modern medical laboratory. Speaking at the event, Orji said his administration’s high premium on the health needs of the people “necessitated the current revolution in the health sector of the state”, promising to sustain the tempo. He said health and security of the people would continue to top the priority list of his government, assuring that very soon , medical tourism overseas would be a thing of the past in the state as efforts were being intensified to upgrade facilities at the state’s public hospitals with “the world’s best.” Orji said he was challenged to replicate the type of facilities he saw during one of his trips to the US where major medical facilities were located in one place. He noted with delight that the “type of sophisticated medical equipment at the cardiac centre as well as the dialysis centre of the state’s Diagnostic Hospital are what can been seen in any reputable hospital abroad”. Orji also disclosed that his administration had expanded health centres in the state from 250 to 710 , with at least one in every political ward. Similarly, he said his government had built 100- bedded hospitals in nine councils of the state, promising to extent it to more councils before his exit in 2015. Earlier, in his address, Commissioner for Health, Dr. Okechukwu Ogah, who said the hospital would commence postgraduate residency training programme in general and family medicine in the near future , disclosed that government had already approved the recruitment of specialists and other healthcare workers to help realise the dream. He noted that under Millennium Development Goals, a TB/HIV/AIDS/malaria treatment and research centre had been constructed in the hospital, and chest clinic sponsored by an oil company. In his remarks, the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Professor Augustus Mbanaso thanked the Governor for transforming the health sector of the state as shown by the numerous health centres, changes in the general hospitals in the state and the transformation at the Amachara specialist hospital. PUNCH
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 01:44:27 +0000
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