Ugwuanyi Lays Foundation For 200-Bed Specialist Hospital

Governor Ifeanyi
Ugwuanyi of Enugu State has laid the foundation stone of a 200-bed ultra modern specialist hospital at Orba in Udenu Local Government Area of the state.
Ugwuanyi said during the occasion that his desire to embark on the project was to provide quality medical care to residents of the state.
According to him, the project would be replicated in other parts of the state by his administration.
“During my inaugural speech, I had expressed my desire to turn Enugu state into a preferred destination for quality medical treatment.
“To actualise this aspiration I promise to build a hospital chain across the state that will complement existing hospitals and other health facilities.
“It is common knowledge that Nigerians spend huge sums of money annually to seek medical treatment abroad.
“It is even sadder to note that a good percentage of this is from the South East Nigeria with Enugu state contributing a large number.
“We have decided as a government to do whatever we can to significantly reduce this avoidable waste of scarce resources by our people in their search for qualitative medical treatment,” he said.
Ugwuanyi said that the ceremony was a bold statement of the intent to take the first major step towards the realisation of the dream.
“It is indeed our aspiration that Enugu will one day become the centre for medical tourism in this country, if not in Africa.
“The location of this hospital in the rural area is in accordance with the desire to open up the rural areas of the state by providing essential amenities and social services in them,” he said.
The governor said that the measure would create more employment and check the rural-urban drift that had split the rural societies for years.
Ugwuanyi called on medical and allied personnel across the state to show more dedication and commitment to their duties and to avoid industrial actions.
“As a government we will continue to provide the facilities and logistics that will improve medicare.
“I pledge to ensure a speedy completion of this project so that our people will not wait long to start enjoying the benefits,” Ugwuanyi said.
Earlier in an address of welcome, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr Samuel Ngwu, said that when completed the hospital would check the trauma people of the area had suffered over the years.
Ngwu said that over 40 per cent of patients that seek medical attention at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUTECH) are from Enugu North Senatorial zone.
“This hospital will check the trauma people from the zone experience in seeking medical attention.
“When completed this hospital will offer tertiary healthcare services with all the four major departments and its allied health services incorporated,” he said.
Ngwu said that their goal was to build an integrated hospital system that would provide a continuum of services that could compete favourably with other centres across the continent.
He said that the hospital would serve as grooming centre for newly graduated medical doctors with an adjoining nursing school to increase the state’s nursing productivity.