~Debo Akinbami, PhD
The health sector, in Ondo State, has taken a new leap. The strides taking place in this government’s department is, to a large extent, something to write home about. By leaps and bounds, the sector soars high. Public records confirm the fact that this segment holds some of the most iconic public health interventions in contemporary time. Its remarkable activities have been acknowledged and applauded, even beyond borders. It is a success story.
Within this purview, the Governor of Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, has done many things rightly. The progress made, in health, is both classic and colossal. The phenomenal performance in this area mirrors the Governor’s exceptional public spirit and the passion he harbours for public health. Aiyedatiwa gives special attention to this ministry, so that, by a large amount, it is progressively adding values to citizens’ lives and delivering optimal services.
Built on a tripod for administrative efficiency, the layers of primary, secondary and tertiary health have given a good account. Each stratum is supervised by a qualified and competent handler and delivers its mandate accordingly. By their respective outputs, the men who man the posts daily justify their calling through proven expertise, prudence, professionalism and the human face they bring to practice. The synergy, to this extent, has proven to be a masterstroke.
With manifest will power, Governor Aiyedatiwa has wrought incredible feats in this critical sphere of governance. What the Governor does in the health sector reassures all and sundry that the state is in safe hands. The experience has shown, beyond all doubts, that when it has to do with citizens’ welfare, Aiyedatiwa leaves no stone unturned. Today, Ondo’s health ministry is fast becoming a cynosure. The investments- in billions – into healthcare infrastructure explain why Ondo looks great on national health statistics.
It is no news that the national health statistics puts Ondo in leadership positions. The state leads its peers in neonatal mortality, infant mortality and under-five mortality; arguably the best in the country. These feats did not evolve overnight; they result from Governor Aiyedatiwa’s deliberate and strategic interventions and reforms. They are harvests from the Governor’s matchless investments in personnel, facilities, training and top-notch welfare. To this effect, the commonplace narrative about medics leaving for the ‘greener pastures’ has been reversed in Ondo, and now, the state does not only produce medical specialists, it exports.
With the Governor’s good intention and attention to the sector, Ondo now produces medical professionals at an incremental rate; and interestingly, the alumni, oftentimes, prefer to stay. In so doing, they take ownership of the institution to develop. This commitment speaks to the quality of working condition and earnings that are comparable. For a fact, the state is rated highly in terms of health sector salary; it is even at par with the federal salary structure, as adopted the Governor Aiyedatiwa.
The Governor steadily gives employment to qualified and experienced hands in this sector, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical laboratory scientists and other cadres. He gives commensurate motivations too. He approves massive recruitment into the trio of primary, secondary and tertiary layers to enhance efficient service delivery and create jobs for thousands of Ondo citizens. Aiyedatiwa implemented what is termed ‘skipping’, so that medical doctors begin at grade level 13, instead of 12, a benefit only few states give in the country.
In the primary healthcare, Governor Aiyedatiwa has revitalised 108 primary healthcare centres with an investment of about N10 billion across the state. The Governor has renovated the hospitals and staff quarters; yet he acquires new ambulances and pursues the provision of 24-hour solar electricity, water supply, basic medical equipment and tricycles for the movement of rural-based patients; even as he begins another phase, so that the entire 203 wards in the state can have a functional health center.
Presently, the Governor has awarded the contracts for new 100-bed hospital complexes for the neuro psychiatrist Hospital, Akure; General Hospital, Ore; State Specialist Hospital, Okitipupa; State Specialist Hospital, Ikare, as well as 50-beded hospital complexes for Igbokoda and Irele General Hospitals. These new hospitals are designed to function as one-stop shop medical centres where patients can access emergency care, delivery services, X-rays, laboratory services and other medical services within one complex.
For the new hospitals, contractors have been mobilised to the sites, and, even so, the Governor insists that each of the 18 local government areas must benefit from the modernised secondary healthcare facilities. The same vein, the Aiyedatiwa-led regime is extending oxygen production, which the state now enjoys in Akure and Okitipupa, to other parts of the state.
The manner Governor Aiyedatiwa delved into the remaking of the tertiary layer of the sector smacks of rare vision. Armed with strategy and vigour, the Governor began by restructuring it. The administrative organ of the University of Medical Sciences’ teaching hospital, Ondo, for instance, was reorganised. What used to operate as multi-campus was reconfigured to a mono campus, so that its operations become better focused and allowance made for proper administrative oversight.
As it does to other sections, the Governor gives staff development a pride of place at the tertiary level. The regime employed doctors and consultants in different areas of specialities. It also expanded the teaching hospital’s capacity for internship. The tertiary section, before Aiyedatiwa, did not have the space for internship in physiotherapy, which has now received full accreditation. The government has significantly enhanced the capacity of the teaching hospital. It now has internships for pharmacy, nursing and other spheres and runs specialist clinics in the various fields at full capacity.
Being part of the Governor’s steady encouragement for medics, he released the Medical residency training fund (MRTF), from which all resident doctors benefited, both the regular and the non-regular. The same administration has purchased over N7 billion worth of medical equipment, whose delivery is already underway. The facilities procured include MRI machines, CT scanners, digital X-ray machines, complete ophthalmology equipment, ultrasound machines and breast cancer screening equipment.
The state’s tertiary health sector yearly produces medical doctors in their hundreds; the same way it annually harvests nurses from its own institutions, including the newly established College of Nursing Sciences. There is no gainsaying Ondo, under Aiyedatiwa, is expanding frontiers in the health sector. As of today, there is no public hospital, owned either by the state or federal government that is doing better than the Sunshine State in terms of salary structure. And, apart from Lagos and Ondo states, none else has been able to produce dental doctors.
These strides, and more, happens, without fanfare, in the health sector. They, altogether, give the Governor, who listens as he cares, out as a leader who takes governance seriously. In his own style, Governor Aiyedatiwa prefers the results to the rally. And, when these sterling achievements are sustained, Ondo can be projected to be Nigeria’s foremost medical mecca, in the near future.
***Dr. Akinbami is the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor of Ondo State on Public Communication.
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