Edo focused on building sustainable healthcare system – Obaseki

Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has said that the state government is determined to build a sustainable healthcare system that will prioritise the revamp of primary healthcare institutions for optimum service delivery.  

Obaseki disclosed this when he received the management team of 4 Breath 4 Life, Canada, who were on a courtesy visit to the Government House in Benin City, the Edo State capital.

He said the government is focused on fixing the healthcare system to ensure that structures are in place to sustain the reforms, noting, “One of our key agenda is to fix the healthcare system. We are thinking through the challenges in the health care system and determined to solve them.”

According to him, “the health care system, worked effectively at a time, but failed later because we departed from the key building blocks. In Edo State, we are determined to fixing the problem by addressing the challenges with  primary healthcare system. A part of the reforms is to equip the primary healthcare centres with qualified medical personnel.”

Obaseki said a set of 20 primary healthcare centers are operating across the state, adding, “In the next two years, the state government intends to roll out about 200 primary healthcare centres.”

Earlier, Executive Director, 4 Breath 4 Life, Canada, Dr. Olumide Oyefeso, commended the effort of the governor in revamping the healthcare system in the state.

He said the group is in the state to seek areas of collaboration with the state government to address maternal and infant mortality, explaining that Nigeria has one of the worst mortality rates in the world with more than 700 babies dying daily.

Oyefeso stressed, “Our goal as a group is to change the narrative and statistics as many of the deaths recorded at birth are preventable.”

He appealed for a policy to ensure that only qualified medical experts attend to babies to ensure infant mortality is reduced in the state.

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