The Managing Director North East Development Commission, NEDC, Alhaji Mohammed Akali says the Commission will fully rehabilitate the Maiduguri Eye and Dental hospitals to effectively provide services to people of the region and beyond.
Alhaji Alkali stated this in an interview with newsmen shortly after inspecting the two hospitals in Maiduguri on Friday.
The Managing Director said one of the mandate of NEDC is to intervene in areas of development including healthcare, noting that dental and eye are among the most important organ in human body.
According to him, the two health facilities would be fully upgraded in terms of structure and equipment to enable it compete favourably with any hospital in the county, adding that similar facilities in all the states of region will be rehabilitated.
“We are here to assess the facilities, now my team and team of the honourable minister are working together to come up with what we can do immediately to see that this place is upgraded to a position whereby people will be comfortable to come here and get medication” Alkali said.
He said,” I am at the hospitals with my team to inspect the hospital. Since 1980, the hospitals have been an edifice for visitation as a tourist attraction being the largest building by then.
I come to see for myself and assess the level of repairs, needs and other requirements needed to make the two hospitals very functional and standard to International level.
“Although, the facilities have been functional but we will try to take note of the hospitals’ needs to enable us know the actual areas and what we are actually going to intervene on.
“We normally have as part of our mandate interventions in health and medical areas towards improving the livelihoods and living condition of the people of the north east.
“Apart from the renovation of the buildings, we are also going to replace all the 20-30 years obsolete and grounded equipment with new and ultra modern and sophisticated equipment and machines.” he pledged.
Mohammed Alkali explained that the Commission under its education endowment fund would train medical professionals to enable that handle the modern equipment when fully deployed.
Borno State Commissioner for Health, Professor Mohammed Arab thanked NEDC for considering to upgrade the hospitals.
