Okowa set to inaugurate completed Asaba Specialist Hospital, June 15

Delta Governor Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, has announced after inspection that Asaba Specialist Hospital that had been fully completed would be inaugurated on Tuesday.

Okowa, while inspecting facilities at the hospital in readiness for the inauguration, said that the hospital had been a beehive of activities since it began operations some months ago.

He explained that the Specialist Hospital was a well-thought-out centre that would reduce pressure from the Federal Medical Centre in Asaba.

Okowa said “The work here is completed and I have come to see it for myself. I have been conducted round by the Medical Director and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health; they have shown me around and I can see that everything is in place.

“The hospital will be inaugurated next Tuesday, but I need to be sure that we are truly ready for the inauguration, hence I am here.

“It’s not about putting up a building, it’s about putting the building into a functional and operational state and I can see very well that we are ready for the inauguration.

“The radiology unit is now fully in place and the oxygen plant is fully installed and I am glad that the hospital is becoming very busy.

“I have been told that since they started, they have seen over 70,000 patients and of this number, no fewer than 30,000 are children under five years of age; so, you can imagine the level of patients that they have attended to.

“There has been a lot of pressure on the Federal Medical Centre, but with this centre here now, I think that we have been able to take off that pressure because when the pressure is too much, you find out that their attending to patients is not good enough and you may lose some people that ordinarily would have been catered for.’’

He expressed confidence that the hospital would be beneficial to the people, stressing that the hospital is going to be very busy and they are doing their best to ensure that they have several specialists either fully employed or coming in on request to see the patients.

“It’s a very functional place and also a hospital where we are putting a part of our services into Public-Private-Partnership (PPP), especially the running of the radiology unit because we think that is the way to go to be able to provide true services to our people.

“I am also told that they have done over 200 surgeries in the past few months; that shows you that obviously this centre was well thought-out and it’s fully functional.”