Edo State Governor and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Godwin Obaseki,has assured that his administration will continue to invest massively in the provision of quality health care services to the people, so that more residents, especially rural dwellers will have access to quality and affordable health care services.
Obaseki gave the assurance in Benin City, during an interactive session organised by the Edo State chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), for all governorship candidates ahead of the September 19, 2020 gubernatorial election in the state.
The governor who promised that no effort would be spared at improving the state’s health sector, noted that accessible roads to all rural communities and constant electricity supply would facilitate the government’s vision to deliver quality health care to the people.
According to him, “The biggest challenge with government and the health care system is lack of collaboration as everybody wants to award their own contracts without letting the other person know what they are doing.
“The responsibility of the government is to ensure quality health care, whether you are rich or poor. So, what we are doing is to put a mechanism in place where everybody can access our health care system.
“With what we are doing with the secondary health care system, if we commit enough resources to our primary health care, then our secondary health care system would only be for referrals.
“But if we don’t have good roads and constant electricity, how will the issue of the health care system be addressed?” Obaseki queried.
The governor said the recurrent issue of poor remuneration for health care providers would continue except a workable insurance plan is in place.
The governor said from 20 Primary Health Care Centres (PHCs) as template across the 18 local government areas, his administration has expanded rollout to 60.
He explained that the expansion was a deliberate decision so as to free up the secondary health facilities for specialised care, while avoiding the faulty procurement process witnessed in the state’s Specialist Hospital.
Governor Obaseki stressed that the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the state was an eye opener for the government as it helped in scaling up its health infrastructure such that it has evolved to compete favourably with other health infrastructure across the globe.
