The outgoing Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, has expressed no regrets about demolishing the Edo Central Hospital in Benin City.
In 2022, Governor Obaseki ordered the hospital’s demolition, which was situated on the Ring Road, to make way for the construction of the Museum for West Africa (MOWA).
He made this statement on Wednesday in Benin City during the commissioning of the renovated School of Science and Health Technology and the matriculation ceremony for the school’s new students.
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“I have to bring down the Edo Central Hospital to give way for primary healthcare centre across the state and I have no regrets bringing it down.
“In place of Central hospital, we have built over 10 primary healthcare centres serving the population one hospital (Central) used to serve.
“Go and see what we have done in Oredo, Amagba, Evbotubu and around other places across the state,” he said.
Obaseki stated that the lesson he learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to revamp the healthcare system and institutions in the state.
“In 2020, during COVID19, I then said if God made me to survive it, I will refurbish all health institutions in the Edo state,” he added.
Obaseki noted that the COVID-19 pandemic made him acutely aware of the inadequacies in the healthcare system in Edo State and Nigeria as a whole. He emphasized that while he wasn’t afraid of the pandemic itself, he was concerned about the capacity to effectively respond to it.
“The lesson I learnt from the COVID-19 is that we must build our own healthcare system, and healthcare is not only about hospitals or infrastructure, but about the people who must be trained to deliver the service to the people,” he said.
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He noted that the school of Nurses and College of Health Science Technology that would have trained the state health workers then were closed down without accreditation.
“If the primary healthcare centres are functioning well in the country many illness would have been taken care of before getting to a state that would warrant travelling abroad for medical treatment.
“Nigeria has more than 25,000 political wards. The policy is that there must be a minimum of one healthcare centre in each ward. So when you are sick, you will not have to spend more than 15 to 20 minutes before reaching a healthcare centre in your community for treatment. That is what we are doing in Edo state now.
“With almost 200 wards in Edo, if we have to employ an average of 10 health workers in a primary health centre, we need minimum of 2,000 and where do we have to train them, no where. But, now we have places to train health workers,” the governor added.
He noted that when he assumed the governorship in 2016, young people in the state lacked the opportunities he has since created for them, stating, “There was no one to care for them; it was only about politics and not development.”
Additionally, the Governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal, praised Obaseki for enhancing the State College of Health Sciences and Technology to better train health workers.
He also urged the institution’s management to establish a student exchange program with sister health schools in Zamfara State.
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