…Affordable care only available via EdoHIS.
Nosakhare Agbonigiarhuoyi
It’s a new dawn for Edo residents as the ongoing upgrade of the Stella Obasanjo Hospital, which will be completed by November 2023, is set to house state-of-the-art equipment, en-suite wards, and sophisticated laboratories, amongst others to provide the same quality of care available abroad.
The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, led the project team to inspect the level of work done on Monday, March 20, 2023, and expressed his satisfaction with the progress made.
He said the upgrade of the hospital to add befitting features is aimed at keeping the promise he made to make Edo State a medical hub.
“We’ve had a medical school that has produced doctors for the last 50 years. So the requisite manpower exists in this environment.
“What does not exist are world-class facilities with the kind of equipment you need to care for patients.
“So what we are doing here is to revamp this facility, modernize it, and equip it with the state-of-the-art equipment that exists everywhere else in the world”, Obaseki said.
Speaking on the affordability of medical care in the facility after the upgrade, he noted that due to the high cost of quality healthcare services, residents would need to be enrolled in the Edo Health Insurance Scheme (EdoHIS) to use the services of the new Stella Obasanjo Hospital comfortably.
He said: “We’ve put in place the financing arrangement through the Edo State Health Insurance Scheme so that you don’t have to pay cash out of pocket.
“As long as you have subscribed to our health insurance, then you can come in here with your card and you will get care.”
The State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Obehi Akoria lauded the project and listed some of the added facilities. She noted that with the upgrade, the facility will be able to provide high-end out-patient services across a wide range of illnesses.
She said: “What you are looking forward to is a facility where you have insurance coverage. You can get antenatal and obstetrics and gynecological care.
“We have built an Outpatient Department that will provide high-end specialist services in ENT, neurology, endocrinology, dental services, physiotherapy, and many more. This will be the only physiotherapy facility in the south-south part of this country that I’m aware of.” the Commissioner said.
She went on to explain that the Inpatient Department has also been upgraded to remove the open wards that characterise public hospitals, to more private en-suite wards to improve patient monitoring and quality of care.
“You can also have internal medicine care ranging from cardiology, neurology, endocrinology, nephrology, antenatal, urology, ophthalmology; dental services; ear, nose, and throat services.
“We are also having here a new set of labs that will cover hematology, clinical chemistry, microbiology, anatomic pathology and all the others.
“Outside that, we are looking to have an administrative block that did not exist before.” Akoria said.
