By: Felix Ikpotor
Rivers State government has given reasons on why the Mother and Child Hospital and the Dr. Peter Odili Cancer and Cardiovascular Hospital built and commissioned by the Chief Nyesom Wike administration in the state have not been opened to members of the public to access healthcare services.
Recall that the Mother and Child Hospital was built and commissioned in 2015 whiles the Dr. Peter Odili Cancer and Cardiovascular Hospital was built and commissioned early 2023 but since the commissioning of the facilties, Rivers people are yet to access them for medical care.
Commissioner for Health in Rivers State, Dr. Adaeze Chidimma Oreh told journalist during a media chat that the hospitals have not come on stream because the private operators engaged by the government to manage them have pulled out due to economic downtown in the country.
She also said the government was in the process of sourcing for a new operator or possibly run the hospital by itself.
She said once a new contractor is found, the facilities would be opened to members of the public to access healthcare.
According to her: “When the Dr. Peter Odili Cancer and Cardiovascular Hospital was commissioned, the then administration thought it wise to engage Public Private Partnership, PPP, to operate and manage the facility and a take-off grant was provided for those partners. From the timelines, they were supposed to have started seeing patients , open its doors fully in November 2023, in the months following my appointment, we had series of meetings, we wanted to see what they were doing in keeping with the timelines that has been provided to government and we were hopeful that by November last year, they would have opened their doors fully and people can walk in and access services not just people of the state but the entire South South and South East Region.
“Unfortunately, there were some sort of soft opening from the information we gathered from the private operators, they saw a few patients and so it was to serve as a soft opening and then the grand opening but by December 2023, that opened door to the public hasn’t happened and ofcourse with the Director of Medical Services here, we were putting pressure on the operators to tell us the challenges and how we can help so that the public can access the services in this facility because we do owe the public an explanation because it’s been years after commissioning and nothing has happened yet and series of meetings back and forth and we were informed that because what they got from government was a take-off grant, the agreement was that they would also have their private investment to support the running of that facility and if you take note of the timeline I’m sharing between November last year and January this year, you know what has happened to foreign exchange and the economy in general and so we were made aware in January that their investors have decided to pull out, and so unfortunately to them, they were at a point where they were seeking to return the asset to the state government, and His Excellency received correspondence from the operators that they cannot be able to manage the Caner and Cardiovascular Hospital and thesame operator was to manage the Mother and Child Hospital. So we know that the Cancer and Cardiovascular Hospital was to manage cancer cases, oncology, cardiovascular and the Mother and Child Hospital was to manage Paediatrics and Obstetrics, deliveries, child care and child heath and all that”.
She added: “We are on the process of terminating and disengaging that particular operator but the team here in the ministry has been charged by His Excellency to work with Her Excellency the deputy governor to review the available options we have as a state to ensure that in the next coming months we would be able to open the doors of those facilities to the public and we have been engaged in that process for the past three weeks and so we are weighing other possible options with other operators of the facility or how we can operate that facility because what we realised is that the longer the time of post -commissioning of that facility the longer they would be rundown.
“We know that there is a need for those hospitals so the burden is on us to ensure that as soon as possible those facilities would be opened but we are keen to interrogating all the available options so we would be sure that we are not signing an agreement or setting up a system that would be failing several months down the road so our due diligence is up to ensure that when this facilities are up, we can confidently say to Rivers people that these facilities are here and you can access them”.
Dr. Oreh also disclosed plans by the state government to refurbish and make functional atleast 40 primary and secondary healthcare facilities in the state in the coming months.
“Regarding the dilapidated nature of primary health centres, we have held an oversight meeting with all the heads of the parastatals such as Hospitals Management Board, Primary Health Care Management Board, Rivers State Health Insurance to dig into their activities in the last quarter, the challenges they faced and the way forward. And one of the things that are ongoing now is the refurbishment and uplifting of a lot of our primary healthcare centres but we have 344 primary healthcare centres in the state, about 109 are functional and in good condition, but we realized that those other 200 are minimal in the scope of services they provide, they are not as optimal as we would want them to be and so we are taking a stepwise approach.
“So where we are today is that by May, we would have refurbished up to 40 primary healthcare centres across the senatorial districts because we know that there is also an imbalance in some of our senatorial districts and LGAs and so we want it to spread and not concentrated in a particular senatorial district,” she stated.
She also expressed the hope that with the approval by Governor Siminalayi Fubara for the recruitment of health personnel, the issue of inadequate manpower in health facilities in the state would be adequately addressed.
