From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
The President Elect, World Medical Association (WMA) Dr. Osahon Enabulele, has decried the nation’s access to healthcare facilities, saying it is less than 30 percent.
Dr. Enabulele said this during the commissioning of the diagnostic centre of the Igbinedion University Teaching Hospital established by Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, the Esama of Benin
He said, “Diagnostic services provide critical access to healthcare and treatment by patients which is available in other climes”.
“In Nigeria, access to healthcare is less than 30 percent because the facilities are not there. But with the diagnostic facilities now, it will gradually improve access to healthcare”.
Enabulele added that diagnostic facilities are essential elements in diagnosing and treatment of serious ailments, calling on other well-meaning individuals to emulate Chief Igbinedion in providing such facilities to create more opportunities for Nigerians to access healthcare.
He stressed the need for Nigeria’s medical experts in diaspora to come back home and invest in healthcare.
Also speaking, Chief Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion, the Chancellor of Igbinedion University, Okada, said the decision to establish the diagnostic centre was to curb medical tourism in the country.
“The teaching hospital and diagnostic centre with all the necessary equipment is to enable consultants to carry out their duty without having to go and set up their own and do their charges in partnership with the centre”
Igbinedion, represented by the deputy Chancellor of Igbinedion University Okada (IUO), Chief Lucky Igbinedion, said the diagnostic centre would operate 24 hours services and reduce medical tourism, saying IUO international cancer centre with modern equipment would soon come on board for cancer patients.
He however lamented the poor maintenance culture of Nigerians towards public facilities, maintaining that it is one thing to build infrastructure and other thing is to have it maintained.
” It is one thing to provide infrastructure and it is another thing for maintenance.
“One of the greatest slack in our country has always been maintenance culture. If you go to several institutions, they might have the best equipment but when it comes to maintenance, it has been lacking.
“So I want to implore the Chief Medical Director to ensure that the difference is going to be cleared with this diagnostic centre. There must be a maintenance culture”, he said.
Commending Igbinedion for establishing the diagnostic centre, wife of the Edo State governor, Betsy Obaseki, said investment in the health sector doesn’t yield the immediate profits but what Igbinedion has done is to improve on the lives and well being of the Nigerian citizens.
Earlier, the Chief Medical Director, Prof. Godwin Nosakhare Bazuaye, said the facilities would rendere services such as CT-scan, X-ray, Ultrasound, electrocardiography (ECG), Echocardiography (ECHO), fertility profiling among others.