By Ayodele Oni
Kwara State Governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq has admitted that present situation in the health sector is worrisome with not fewer than 170 medical professionals leaving the service.
The Governor explained that the State Civil Service witnessed a mass exodus of professionals in the last three months that left for greener pastures.
He was speaking at the commissioning of an N350million ultra-modern medical center situated in the General Hospital, Offa town, Offa local government area of Kwara state, constructed by an indigenous association, the Offa Metropolitan Club (OMC).
According to him, the state government cannot manage healthcare alone.
The governor, who was visibly excited over the project by the community, said that the state government would support the initiative for benefit of the people.
He also disclosed that the project was a challenge for the government to ensure that its structures are in dignified state.
“As a government, we cannot come in and see an institution like this and see our own dilapidated. It puts pressure on us to also make sure we do well on the government side.”
Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the President on Finance and Economy, Sarah Alade, who is also the president of the OMC, called for community-based collaborations as part of measures to tackle prevailing challenges in the nation’s health sector.
Alade said that the COVID-19 pandemic, the mass emigration of healthcare workers, and the current fiscal realities on the ground would limit speedy transformation in the medical field shortly.
Sarah Alade, who was former acting governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said that the cumulative effect of the situations had shown that the government cannot do it alone, adding that the development led the club to conceive the idea of building a medical facility to complement efforts of the government in the health sector.
Alade, who explained that the medical facility was in fulfillment of the group’s pledge to boost quality health services in the Offa community and its environs, added that the facility would be equipped with specialized medical screening and diagnostic facilities.
The OMC President also said that the club had initiated a health trust fund to make the facility accessible to all classes of indigenes, just as she solicited support from well-to-do individuals to key into it through the government health insurance scheme.
Chairman BOT of the club, Dr. Funsho Oladipo, who was represented by Dr. Layi Bello, said that the hospital project was founded on the need to provide high-quality medical services to the people of Offa and its surroundings.
“I believe that this project will serve as a template that will be replicated across Kwara state, which will not only provide health care services to the people of the communities but also create jobs.
“At the inception of this project, the OMC Medical Center planning committee members had the vision to build a one-of-a-kind medical center with state-of-the-art equipment to ensure that the people of Offa and its environs benefit immeasurably.
“We involved a vast number of experts to ensure we delivered nothing but the best to our people and the result is what we see before us today, this center has been designed to provide comprehensive quality medical services as a complement to the services already being provided by the Offa General Hospital.”
