7 Specialist Hospitals to be Upgraded

The Federal Government has said it will upgrade seven specialist hospitals across the country, to provide advanced health services and discourage frequent travels abroad for medical attention, which depletes the nation's hard earned foreign exchange.
Minister of State For Health, Dr Aliyu Idi Hong, disclosed this in Kaduna, weekend, at the end of his facility tour of three federal hospitals; the Federal Neuro-psychiatric Hospital, National Eye Centre and National Ear Care Centre.
Hong said, "we have good facilities on ground and we are going to further upgrade some facilities in our specialist hospitals because, in the 2009 budget, government is working towards upgrading seven specialist hospitals to international standard.
"The National Eye Centre is one of them, we have seen their level of preparedness and what need to be done, so that after the restructuring and upgrade, we hope that any eye problem for example, that would need attention, except if you are just travelling for travelling sake, it should be handled in this country."
He said, "since we have the manpower, all we need to do is to strengthen and provide more facilities and also retrain the human capacities that we have," and commended management of National Ear Care Centre and the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric hospital for the improved and functional state of the institutions, adding that "these are the newest of all the hospitals under the purview of the Federal Ministry of Health, and this is why we are more
challenged."It is worthy of note that the hospital has made far reaching positive contributions in eye care in Nigeria, particularly in the area of prevention of blindness.
"Apart from the hospital-based ophthalmic services, we are committed to community-based outreach programmes, which earned the hospital the designation of a World Health Organisation (WHO) collaborating Centre for the prevention of blindness," he said, and appealed to government to come to the aid of the Centre in the upgrade of its facilities, adding that "most of the intervention projects have since been completed with the exception of very few which will be completed within the first quarter of 2009 budget."
At the Federal Neuro-psychiatric hospital, Chief Medical Director, Dr Ganiyu Toyin Suleiman, itemised some of the shortcomings of the hospital to include, lack of adequate manpower, funding, lack of enabling act establishing the hospital and decay of infrastructure.

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