As part of activities to round off the eight year administration of Adams Oshiomhole as the governor of Edo State, President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday commissioned the reconstructed 114 years old state owned central hospital in Benin- City.
BusinessDay reports that President Muhammadu Buhari was on two-days working visit to the state to commission some numbers of projects to mark the two tenure of eight years administration of the outgoing governor, Adams Oshiomhole next Saturday.
Buhari who earlier paid courtesy visit to the monarch of the Benin kingdom, Oba Ewuare 11 commissioned the multi-billion reconstructed central hospital that was first built in 1902.
The president who commissioned the central hospital commended the outgoing governor for written his name in gold in the political, social and infrastructural development of the state in the past eight years.
According to him, I am very impressed with this project, and I think this is the best way and the best thing he can do for the people of the state. I respect the sacrifice of his personal comfort that instead of building a new government house he decided to build this hospital.
“I think it takes a lot of courage to do what he did because may be the elites around him they like some more comfortable environment and far away hospital because maybe when they becomes commissioners or heads of parastatal they can afford to go out of the country for what they called “medical tourism”.
“All I can say is to thank the governor for really making his presence in Edo state for going into history and the chairman of our party is here so he can see what some of his governor are doing and I believe he can confirm with other places”, he said.
In his address, the outgoing governor, Adams Oshiomhole said the decision to reconstruct the hospital stemmed from the commitment of his administration to invest in the medical care of the people of the state as well as to reduce medical tourism.
Oshiomhole opined that rather than embarking on piecemeal renovation of the hospital, he however opted for a total reconstruction.
“I felt that rather than doing piecemeal renovation we needed to build a complete new hospital we demolished a portion of the one that was done in 1902 to build a complete new hospital.
He contended public health care facilities should not be inferior to the private healthcare facilities, and that public office holders should begin to think big and clearly about the nation’s future.
The governor who posited that Nigerians cannot continue to lament medical tourism that has negatively affected the nation’s healthcare development noted that the only ways to address the medical challenges was to establish hospitals with the state-of-the-art facilities and that the country was blessed with qualified medical personnel.
He advocated that the doctors should be paid on the basis of their works rather than being present at work.
He also advocated that the operations of the hospital should not be run in the ways the public civil is run, and doctors should not be paid on the basis of prescribed salary that does not discriminate between those that work and those that doesn’t work.
He stated that government needed to create a new remuneration system that seemed to reconcile efforts with rewards, pointing out that would allow medical personnel to make informed choice of whether to spend their time on strike or spending time attending to patients.
“Subject to what the next governor will do my position is that this hospital will not be run position in the ways that the public civil is run, doctors will not be paid on the basis of prescribed salary that does not discriminate between doctors who works and those who doesn’t.
“For what we see elsewhere you are paid according to your productivity and we need to create a new remuneration system that seemed to reconcile efforts with rewards in that way people can choose whether to spend all their time on strike or spend their time attending to patients. Their choice will be theirs and they will be rewarded exactly according to their input”, he stated.
Oshiomhole who said the hospital is equipped with the state-of-the-art facilities, however added that some of the medical equipment are yet to be delivered by the contracting firm an Austral-Germany based company.
Earlier, the state commissioner for health, Aihanuwa Eregie said the central hospital built in 1902 initially started with 10 bed capacities and was later upgraded to about 280 bed capacities excluding the 200 bed capacities in the new reconstructed hospital.
Eregie added that the medical render by the hospital covered 11 medical sub- specialties, training of undergraduate and post-graduate health personnel.
Other projects commissioned by the president are the Upper Siluko dual carriage way, New Era Model College now named after Samuel Ogbemudia, inspection of the reclamation of Queen Ede erosion control site.
The commissioning of projects continues today (Tuesday) in Edo Central and Edo North senatorial district respectively before departing to Abuja.
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