Delta to inaugurate Asaba Specialist Hospital

Delta Governor, Sen. (Dr) Ifeanyi Okowa, on Friday, announced that Asaba Specialist Hospital had been fully completed and would be inaugurated on Tuesday.

Okowa, who stated this while inspecting facilities at the hospital in readiness for the inauguration, said that the hospital had been a beehive of activities since it commenced operations some months ago.

He remarked that the Specialist Hospital was a well-thought-out centre which would reduce pressure from the Federal Medical Centre in Asaba.

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“The work here is completed and I have come to see it for myself. I have been conducted round by the Medical Director and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health; they have shown me round and I can see that everything is in place.

“The hospital will be inaugurated next Tuesday, but I need to be sure that we are truly ready for the inauguration, hence I am here.

“It’s not about putting up a building, it’s about putting the building into a functional and operational state and I can see very well that we are ready for the inauguration.

“The radiology unit is now fully in place and the oxygen plant is fully installed and I am glad that the hospital is becoming very busy.

“I have been told that since they started, they have seen over 70,000 patients and of this number, no fewer than 30,000 are children under five years of age; so, you can imagine the level of patients that they have attended to,” he said.

The governor expressed optimism that the hospital would be beneficial to the people, saying “I believe that this hospital is going to be very busy and we are doing our best to ensure that we have several specialists either fully employed or coming in on request to see our patients.

“It’s a very functional place and also a hospital where we are putting a part of our services into Public-Private-Partnership (PPP), especially the running of the radiology unit because we think that is the way to go to be able to provide true services to our people,” he said.

On COVID-19 vaccination, the governor said that 910 persons in the state had been vaccinated for the second dose.

He stated that only four million doses of the vaccine had come into the country, adding that when all the required doses would be delivered, health officials could go to as many places as possible to carry out the vaccination.