Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State has stepped up his administration’s health care delivery to the electorate with the coming to the South-South state of United States (U.S.) health mission of experts to treat people with glaucoma and cataract eye problems.
The experts will also render other sundry medical services.
Commissioner for Health, Dr. Sampson Parker, told reporters at the Braithwaite Memorial Hospital, Port Harcourt on Monday that the U.S.-based health mission –Hospitals for Humanity – was in the state as part of Amaechi’s specialist manpower development initiative instituted as a programme in the Ministry of Health to enhance healthcare delivery in the state.
He said the Amaechi administration, through the programme, gets medical experts from all over the world to work with Rivers State Government medical personnel to deliver quality healthcare in the state.
According to him, the foreign medical experts would provide quality medical care particularly for glaucoma and cataract patients who suffer from eye problems.
He also said the Amaechi administration also recently procured over N1 billion HIV/AIDS drugs for HIV patients in the state.
In the same vein, Amaechi’s Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Mr David Iyofor, noted that the current health mission in the state again demonstrates Amaechi’s passion for free, quality healthcare delivery to the people.
Parker said: “It’s part of this (Amaechi’s) administrations goal to improve manpower and that is why when the governor came on board, there is this programme we instituted in the ministry of health called the specialist manpower development and on that programme we’ve done a couple of mission, that is where we have to bring in specialists from all over the world to come and work with our own persons. You know, we did the astroplatic programme when we were doing the knee replacement. We had a heart mission before and when these Hospitals for Humanity came for their own, we discussed two areas, the ophthalmology and heart too. So it was easy for us to key into their programme”.
The collaboration, according to him, provides opportunity for sharing experience between the two groups, stressing that Ophthalmology (eye care treatment) would be greatly improved in the state with the health mission.
“It is an opportunity too to upgrade our equipment here because the workers here are being exposed to latest equipment and they come with some which they are going to leave behind and some we have to procure with their own guidance.
“We know that we are tackling HIV/AIDS and malaria now like the rest of the country and today, we are at the forefront in our fight against HIV/AIDS and malaria in the comity of states of Nigeria and recently we’ve procured over a billion Naira worth of HIV/AIDS commodities and in fact His Excellency, Governor Amaechi has told me that I should please give some to our neighbouring states so that they too can attend to their problems there”.
An Ophthalmologist and member of the Health Mission, Dr Tosin Smith, acknowledged that the Rivers State Government truly intended to meet the healthcare needs of the people of the state by securing their services, saying that her team would work in collaboration with medical personnel in the state to provide healthcare services for the people.
“I think Rivers State has taken ownership of the needs of their population and have not only just invited us but they followed through with the invitation to bring us here to make sure that this mission is a success. We work with the group called the Hospitals for Humanity. It’s a non-profit organization. We have travelled Nigeria and we travel the world and go, reach out to help people who need care not just eye care but also general medical care as well.
“We are evaluating patients that we are finding patients who need surgery and that as we find those patients, we’ll go ahead and schedule their surgery and perform surgery here this weekend next week. There is a lot of people who need help and that’s why we are here. We are here to help people, to reach out. The goal here is to be able to see what the needs are, address those needs and improve the health care that is being provided to the people in Rivers State.
“We are not here to lord it over anybody. It is a collaboration. They show us what they know and we show them what we know, so not only am I here providing the service but I’m also learning from my colleagues who work here and we have worked together as a team all morning trying to screen patients. We have patients lined up for surgery tomorrow and we will start.”
She said their aim was to improve the current state of healthcare in the state and commended Governor Amaechi for the current quality healthcare delivery in the state.
“ The reason we are here is to improve the current status quo and we hope that as we work for the government in the coming days that things will improve. There is nothing that is constant. There is always a service that is better than the one you provide and that is our goal, to improve the current state of heath care in the State”, Dr Smith said.
Iyofor said further: “The current health mission in Rivers State is all part of the general policy on healthcare of the Amaechi administration. Governor Amaechi, Iyofor said, is very passionate about health care and that is why the moment he came in, he declared free medical health care for Rivers people. He is very passionate about health care.
“This current mission is all part of that policy of providing good quality health care for Rivers people and governor will not stop. He will keep on looking for new ways, new means to deliver better quality health care to Rivers people.”
