Delta Governor, Sen. (Dr) Ifeanyi Okowa, on Saturday, said the huge investment being made by his administration in the health sector was to improve healthcare delivery and reduce medical tourism in the country.
Okowa who is the Vice-Presidential Candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), disclosed this in an interview with journalists shortly after inspecting facilities at the Advanced Diagnostic Medical Centre and Mother and Child Hospital, Owa-Alero in Ika North-East Local Government Area of the state.
He said that the twin medical facilities would, on completion, reduce medical tourism as it would provide first-class medical services to people who would have sought medical treatment abroad.
While saying that the Mother and Child Hospital would take care of every illness concerning women and children, the Governor said the Advanced Diagnostic Medical Center would take care of all manner of investigative procedures in radiology and other laboratory analyses.
“I am glad that we have gotten to this place. I had high hopes that by today, we would have inaugurated these projects.
“We are working behind time, there is no doubt about that but I have just been reassured that in the next one month, the projects would be ready.
“The equipment are fully on site and we are trying to get things fully sorted out and I am sure that in the next one month, it should be ready and opened to the public for use.
“The two projects are obviously very important. The Mother and Child, as it is so stated, is supposed to take care of every illness concerning our women and children.
“While the Advanced Diagnostic Center is going to take care of all manners of investigative procedures both in radiology and other laboratory analysis that they have to do.
“The Advanced Diagnostic Medical Center is also going to be a center that would be involved in treatments. There are so many equipment in here. But until they finish with this construction, they would not be fully installed,” he said.
Speaking further, Governor Okowa said the key infrastructural projects being executed by his administration would be inaugurated between November and December, this year.
However, he pointed out that many of the projects executed by his administration, especially the multiple road projects, were already being put to use by Deltans as soon as they were completed, adding that he doesn’t have to go and start inaugurating all them before they can be put to use.
On the new technical colleges in the state, the Governor said students were already being admitted into three of them which he listed to include Uvwie, Obiaruku and Asaba Technical Colleges, adding that Asaba and Uvwie Technical Schools will commence academic activities by next week while that of Obiaruku will start in October, this year.
“Those schools are really well planned and we have lots of equipment to teach the children. The academic and non-academic staff have already been engaged and they are undergoing some trainings now.
“There are still so many other projects that are on going. For instance, the 160kms dualisation that we are constructing from Asaba to Ughelli is one of them.
“We also have several bridges that we are constructing. I intend to pay a visit to one or two of them. I also hope I find time to go through Trans-Warri Road and bridges.
“I believe that between now and December, a lot of key projects would be brought to completion and we will be inaugurating projects in the dry season. September and October are still raining season and I would not want to fix project inauguration within this period of time.
“But for any project that is completed, we put it to use. It does not have to wait for inauguration because the project is for the people, inauguration is funfare,” the governor added.