The President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration has announced a significant investment in the healthcare sector, aimed at achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and transforming the country’s health landscape.
The disclosure was made by the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, on Friday during the Medserve groundbreaking ceremony for 10 oncology and diagnostic centers at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH) in Bauchi.
The Minister also said that President Bola Tinubu is doing everything humanly and administratively possible to transform the country through the health sector.
According to him, “Mr President is very clear, he wants to transform this country. He wants to change the direction of this country and we are fortunate that he picked health as one of those areas.”
Ali Pate added, “In just One year, he has done what has not been done in the history of this country in the health sector.”
The Minister boasted that, “He has launched many initiatives and building on what Medserve has done, we are seeing 10 major infrastructural projects, the groundbreaking is happening”
He stressed that, “In 12 months, we will start opening them all across Nigeria. There are 6,000 centers that NSIA is doing, and I think the money is available, and those too would be completed within 12 to 18 months; they would be opened.”
He also said that President Bola Tinubu has undertaken the retraining of 120,000 Frontline health workers across the country, adding that 10,000 of them had been retrained across the country, including in Bauchi state.
In his address, Bauchi State Governor, Sen Bala Mohammed said that his administration would soon spend N25 billion on the state Specialist Hospital to complement the medical services at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital.
He appreciated President Bola Tinubu for deepening inclusion and expressed gratitude that Bauchi state was part of the renewed hope agenda of the president
According to him, “We want poverty and anger to go and this kind of initiative is also reducing anger.”
“On behalf of myself and indeed all the governors in the various states of the federation where this program is coming, we are happy with the federal government,” said the Governor.
Also speaking, Dr. Tolulope Adewole, Managing Director, Medserve, said that between 2020 and today, Medserve has attended to 131,000 patients in NSIA Kano diagnostic center, and all have testimonial attestation.
He explained that close to 700,000 individual tests have been done between the laboratory and the imaging, adding that the same gesture had been extended in Umuahia and has treated over 10,000 patients in Lagos.
“As we commission this one in Bauchi, in another 12 to 15 months, this project’s doors would never be closed and that the patients of Bauchi would join that number and they would have a testimonial of what is going to happen.
“We have just three things that we do, equity, access, and quality, and our goal is to demonstrate equitable access.”
“All lives are equal and the same quality service you get in other places would be gotten here,” he said.