Reforms in the Edo State’s healthcare system in the last eight years have been targeted at strengthening and repositioning the State’s healthcare system to tap from the over $3bn expended on medical tourism by Nigerians, the State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, said on Thursday.
The governor stated this while delivering his keynote address at an event to mark five years of quality healthcare delivery by the Edo Specialist Hospital (ESH), held at the John Odigie Oyegun Public Service Academy, (JOOPSA), in Benin City, the Edo State capital.
According to Obaseki, “The healthcare space in this Country is humongous as over $3 billion dollars of our own money is spent to treat ourselves abroad. This money is in trillions when you change to our currency. Why can’t we provide such care here in Edo State as people will spend it here?
“This will not happen because unless we unlock the value in the healthcare chain, we are not going to realize such opportunities. The Edo Specialist Hospital is a good case study as an operating model like this can work.”
The governor who described the Edo Specialist Hospital as a representation of his administration’s reforms across various sectors of the State’s economy, said the hospital, conceived about ten years ago by the previous administration, has produced dogged and compassionate health professionals who have demonstrated the can-do spirit of the Edo people.
He further noted, “This facility was conceived 10 years ago by the previous administration. It was designed as a hospital but in the process of building, it collapsed as the design needed to be reassessed.
“The hospital became a political issue but we were focused to make it work despite all the challenges we faced in the past five years.
“We focused on reforming and rebuilding institutions we inherited and we worked on reforming the health sector to dissuade people from seeking care outside the country or State.
“I put together a team in 2017 on how to transform the health sector but received a lot of political bashing which I ignored because of this facility. I knew this facility was not the problem.”
He continued: “As an administration, we focused on dealing with the core issues which is rethinking our healthcare system in the State, looking at the role of government in the healthcare space and the resources the government has and how to deploy it to the benefits of our people.
“With the team we put in place, a new healthcare programme which we termed the Edo Health Improvement Programme (Edo-HIP) was birthed. We have over five million people in Edo State and we are focusing on how to ensure the majority of them receive care.
“The issue of financing healthcare is at the core of healthcare challenges as healthcare is expensive anywhere in the World. I was never tempted to build a five-star hospital but to invest in the ones we have.”
“We are here to celebrate with ourselves that despite the challenges, the projects worked to the benefit of the people,” Obaseki added.
Earlier, the governor presented a Scholarship Award to the first baby born at the Edo State Specialist Hospital.
