Wike Infuses Health, Banigo Affirms

The Rivers State Deputy Governor, Dr. Ipalibo Harry Banigo says the State Chief Executive, Chief Nyesom Wike was not only health-friendly but infuses health.
Banigo stated this while playing host to a delegation of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) at the Government House in Port Harcourt, yesterday.
Banigo said, “We did not need to have a deputy governor as a medical doctor to prompt him to action, he by himself infuses health, he believes, thinks and acts health in all that he does”.
According to the deputy governor, “There are two areas he does not joke with, one is health and the other is education and of course social sectors like security so we are very lucky in Rivers State to have him as our governor”, she stressed.
Banigo, who disclosed that the College of Medical Sciences was the brain child of the governor, said when Governor Wike came onboard, he insisted that the Rivers State University deserves to have a medical college because we have the manpower and Port Harcourt is very cosmopolitan, with a large population, which necessitated the need for us to train our medical personnel, and he did not stop until it came to fruition.
“We have employed so many professors and lecturers, so we are set to take the first intakes this year, and get the medical school running”, Banigo added.
The deputy governor, who insisted that there was no other hospital like the Rivers State Mother and Child Hospital in the South-South geopolitical zone, said it has 258-bed spaces, 50 delivery rooms, and was fully equipped with the state-of-the-art medical equipment, noting that it was a masterpiece.
Banigo said, “We did not stop at tertiary hospitals our secondary and primary health services are top notch, our Zonal Hospital in Bori, Degema and Etche would be ready for commissioning early next year”.
She said the general hospitals were being re-equipped, re-designed and some are being rebuilt to make sure they render services to our people.
Banigo, who expressed the need for doctors to be self-motivated, said, “You signed up to be a doctor, for medical ethics, so, let us motivate ourselves to show that we believe in this profession.
“Let us encourage ourselves as doctors across board especially those of us who are on clinical services, develop that self-motivation and work as if your life depends on it and let the community you are serving be the ones to judge us.”
Earlier, the National President of the Nigerian Medical Association, Prof. Innocent Ujah, who said he was in the state to inaugurate the new leadership of the NMA, had disclosed that the transformation of the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital was phenomenal, and thanked the state government for employing more professors and lecturers into the system.