Upgrade For BMSH

As part of measures to upgrade healthcare facilities in the state-owned Braithwaite Specialist Memorial Hospital (BMSH), the Rivers State Government has acquired Pulmonary Check and Gene Expert machines to screen infants for HIV/AIDS.
The gene machines, according to the state Commissioner for Health, Dr Theophilus Odagme is to test patients of Tuberculosis.
Odagme told newsmen last weekend in Port Harcourt that the state government has equally set up a cancer committee with a registry following the rising cases of cancer in the state.
With plans by the Federal Government to set up a radiotherapy centre in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, (UPTH), the state commissioner for health said the state government will tap from the centre by sending cancer patients to the facility for treatment.
Further explaining measures put in place to check cancer in the state, Odagme said government has raised awareness campaigns, adding that, “at BMSH, we have oncologists, and they are managing cancer patients.”
On the achievements so far made by the Wike administration in the health sector, the commissioner stated that already, both primary and secondary healthcare have been reorganised.
“We are improving services at the primary healthcare centres. The issues of strike and other labour actions that were common in the past administration have been curtailed,” he said.
He recalled that as part of measures to check communicable and non-communicable diseases, the Wike administration, in collaboration with development agencies, contained the threat of Lassa Fever, insisting that, “we have since engaged in capacity building to tackle diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS, and there is cancer awareness going on now in the state.”
Meanwhile, the commissioner for health has disclosed plans by the state government to commence renovation works on the general hospitals across the state.
The commissioner said this was in line with the vision of the administration to provide quality healthcare all-round the state and reduce the pressure on the tertiary healthcare facilities in the state.