Rivers State Deputy Governor Dr. Mrs. Ipalibo Harry Banigo says the State Chief Executive Nyesom Ezenwo Wike is not only health friendly but he Infuses Health.
Dr. Banigo stated this while playing host to a delegation of the Nigerian Medical Association at the Government House in Port Harcourt on Thursday 15th October, 2020.
Dr. Banigo said “we did not need to have a Deputy Governor as a medical doctor to prompt him to action, he by himself infuses health, he believes, thinks and acts health in all that he does”.
According to the Deputy Governor, “there are two areas he does not joke with, one is health and the other is education and of course social sectors like security so we are very lucky in Rivers State to have him as our Governor”. She stressed.
Dr. Banigo who disclosed that the College of Medical Sciences is the brain child of the Governor said when Governor Wike came on Board he insisted that the Rivers State University deserves to have a Medical College because we have the manpower and Port Harcourt is very cosmopolitan, with a large population, which necessitated the need for us to train our medical personnel and he did not stop until it came to fruition.
“We have employed so many professors and lecturers, so we are set to take the first intakes this year and get the medical school running” Dr. Banigo quipped.
The Deputy Governor who insisted that there is no other Hospital like the Rivers State Mother and Child Hospital in the South-south Geopolitical Region, said it has 258 bed spaces, 50 delivery rooms and is fully equipped with the state of the art medical equipment, noting that it is a master piece.
She said “we did not stop at tertiary hospitals our secondary and primary health services are top notch, our Zonal Hospital in Bori, Degema and Etche would be ready for commissioning early next year”.
She said the General Hospitals are being re-equipped, re-designed and some are being rebuilt to make sure they render services to our people.
Dr. Banigo who expressed the need for doctors to be self-motivated said “you signed up to be a doctor, for medical ethics, so let us motivate ourselves to show that we believe in this profession. Let us encourage ourselves as doctors across board especially those of us who are on clinical services, develop that self-motivation and work as if your life depends on it and let the community you are serving be the ones to judge us.”
Earlier the National President of the Nigerian Medical Association Prof. Innocent Ujah who said he was in the State to inaugurate the new leadership of the NMA, disclosed that the transformation of the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital is phenomenal, and thanked the State Government for employing more professors and lecturers into the system.
