Bayelsa State Government Seeks to Upgrade Healthcare Facilities

Bayelsa State Government looks poised to upgrade and transform healthcare services in the state and this is being given teeth through a deal with South Africa's Medscheme.

Medscheme is South Africa's largest black-owned healthcare company providing technology-driven health management services as well as health risk solutions. It recently diversified into financial services through its Medscheme Financial Services.

A memorandum of understanding on the Bayelsa project has already been executed by the parties, for Medscheme to re-design and rehabilitate medical equipment in Bayelsa State hospitals. The company will also supply needed medical equipment to update the hospitals in the state.

This disclosure was made by the state's Commissioner for Health, Dr. Godbless Eruani, who has just returned from South Africa where the MOU was signed. He also disclosed the State Government's intention to raise the quality of hospitals in the state to international standards, for the benefit of the people of the state.

Medscheme is expected to deploy a sizeable team of up to 20 experts to install hospital equipment under the deal. It will also train over 40 Bayelsa citizens who will man the equipment in the various hospitals.

Bayelsa, one of the 36 states in Nigeria, is in the oil-rich but largely neglected Niger Delta region. With agitations by the indigenes for a fair deal from the Federal Government of Nigeria now assuming more a radical dimension that is marked by frequent abduction of both oil workers and relatives of political figures, the rapid development of the region has become imperative and urgent. The proposed rehabilitation of hospitals on a grand scale will possibly bring a flicker of hope that the area may yet get the much-needed infrastructural investment, to raise the standard of life for a people from whose soil the nation's oil wealth is tapped.