News of extension of Mother and Child hospitals to all the three senatorial districts of Ondo State with the addition of five of such maternal and child health facility in different communities was greeted with accolades across length and breadth of the state.
This move, which raises the number of Mother and Child hospitals in the state from two to seven and targeted at bringing maternity and child healthcare to the doorsteps of the people, is part of efforts to up the ante in healthcare delivery and maternity health.
The five new maternity and child healthcare facilities billed for Ikare Akoko and Owo in Northern Senatorial District: and Okitipupa, Ore and Igbokoda in Southern Senatorial District will be in addition to the existing two in Akure, the state capital and Ondo in the Central Senatorial District.
The state government also announced commencement of free medical care for pregnant women and children between the ages of zero and five years at the Mother and Child hospitals and as well the over 500 health centres in the state.
Health Commissioner, Dr Wahab Adegbenro, said the Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu administration was concerned with bringing effective health service delivery to the doorsteps of the people, adding that scaling up the Mother and Child hospital with five more centers was part of the government’s efforts to ensure that the vulnerable group has unrestricted access to quality health care service.
Adegbenro said: “You will also recall that Governor Akeredolu signed into law the contributory Health Insurance Scheme which has also made provision for the vulnerable. The government has also approved the introduction of free health care service for pregnant women and children between ages zero and five.
“From the two mother and child hospitals that we currently have, we are moving up to seven. The council deliberated and approved that the State Specialist Hospital, Ikare Akoko will now become Mother and Child Hospital, Ikare. The general hospitals in Owo, Ore, Okitipupa and Igbokoda have been scaled to Mother and Child hospitals as well,” the medical expert said.
Before now, there have been cries that the present administration in the state had stopped the free maternal and child healthcare delivery in existence before its advent. Pregnant women in the state even protested anticipated introduction of fees in the hospitals.
But the Akeredolu administration, which dismissed rumour of the purported abolition of free maternal healthcare delivery as propaganda of the opposition, assured that there was no plan to introduce fees, saying it was only reviewing the system operated by the last administration with a view to coming out with practicable and more robust healthcare delivery for the category and as well others.
Information Commissioner Mr Yemi Olowolabi, who reiterated Akeredolu’s commitment to putting maternal and child health in the front burner, wondered how anyone would have believed the rumour of stopping Mother and Child hospital or abrogating free maternal and child health services being peddled by the opposition.
He said: “The appraisal undertaken by the Akeredolu government has today widened the scope of Mother and Child hospital. The government addressed the fact that it was unfair for only the Central Senatorial District to be benefitting whereas other districts were deprived of the privilege”.
According to him, the present administration discovered inflation or padding of number of births in the hospitals under the previous administration with a view to siphoning funds in view of the supports the Mother and Child hospitals were receiving from NGOs, hence the need for appraisal by Akeredolu.
Olowolabi said the Mother and Child hospitals in Ikare, Owo, Ore, Okitipupa and Igbokoda would be carved out of the existing general hospitals there and equipped with state-of-art maternity and child healthcare equipment and facilities for the task.
According to him, apart from maternal and child health, the Akeredolu government, in view of the role of good health in the growth and productivity of any society, is working assiduously to raise the bar of health care in the state by making it affordable, accessible and qualitative hence upgrade, renovations, equipping and establishing new health facilities in a bid to scale up health care delivery.
Highlighting some interventions in the sector, Adegbenro said Akeredolu, since inception of office, has been addressing the issue of health headlong, saying among steps the present administration has taken are in the aspects of medical and health personnel and human resources development including approval to the Ministry of Health for recruitment of more medical personnel to replace retiring medical workers and enhance medical services in the state.
According to him, to guarantee quality personnel, the present administration has approved affiliation of the state School of Nursing and Midwifery in Akure to the state University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED), Ondo, in a bid to make the school a degree awarding institution in line with the directive of Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.
The State Executive Council also approved that the Medical Village in Ondo becomes the Teaching Hospital of state-owned University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED), Ondo with the State Specialist Hospitals in Akure and Ondo becoming annexes of the teaching hospital.
The council also approved a new bill seeking upgrade of the Ondo State School of Health Technology in Akure to a College of Health Technology.
It would be recalled that Governor Akeredolu had, in his inaugural address while taking over the mantle of leadership in 2017, listed provision of accessible and qualitative health care and social service delivery as one of the cardinal programmes of his government.
Then, Akeredolu, who promised to sustain and improve upon the healthcare delivery system operating in the state, had said: “We shall adopt a deliberate policy to ensure that our people have access to healthcare regardless of their social status. We intend, within the available resources, to provide qualitative primary health care delivery system to the rural populace. Health care centres in the rural areas will be accessible and functional”.
Living up to his words, the governor, who has showcased his commitment to taking the health sector to enviable heights with various interventions in the sector including passion for the health of the children, who are the tomorrow of the state, has impacted on the health care system at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels.
The intervention of the administration in ensuring good health for the children during the routine immunization programmes shows the readiness and commitment of the government to health issues just as it is expanding the frontiers with the latest nod on free medicare for pregnant women and children and extension of the scope of maternal and child healthcare.
