EDOCSO Tasks Obaseki On Benin Central Hospital

Edo Civil Society Organisations (EDOCSO) has asked Governor Godwin Obaseki to explain what the state government wants to do with the Central Hospital, Benin City.
The CSO made the demand in a statement it issued after its General Assembly in Benin City over the weekend. The demand was made against speculations that the Obaseki administration planned to shut down the hospital.
Obaseki had a few years ago demolished the Edo Central Hospital located in the centre of Benin City and relocated various units of the hospital to different hospitals and sister agencies, and thereafter started construction of a museum on the site of the hospital.
The statement jointly signed by Leftist Austine Enabulele, Interim Technical Executive Council (TEC) Chairman, and Leftist Grace Okike, interim TEC Secretary, and read during the General Assembly, the civil society members lamented that rather than improving on the hospital built with tax payers’ money, Obaseki had caused more damage to the hospital and has made it unaffordable for the masses.
According to them, Obaseki’s actions regarding the hospital were a departure from the purpose the hospital was established over a century ago.
They said, “Most recently is the sharp increment of hospital bills. Case file which used to be N6,000 has been increased to N15,000.
“As we speak Edo State does not have Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in the state hospital which finally suggests that healthcare is gone and of no interest or importance to the government of the day.
“It should be noted that, our forebears established the central hospital in such a strategic location for easy access and affordability for the people.
“What the government led by Mr. Godwin Obaseki currently doing is a far departure from it, and this is anti-people, wicked and a devalue for the lives of Edo people and residents respectively.
“One would think the new hospital built using tax payers’ money by the former governor of Edo state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole would have been equipped with modern health equipment as an expansion of the Edo Central hospital to boost the government health facility in the state by this Obaseki’s administration as at when he took over in 2016. Instead it was surreptitiously privatized by him, which has become far from the reach and affordability of the poor,” EDOSCO said.
The civil society members rejected the total close down of Edo Central Hospital and recent increase in hospital bills of the average and poor Citizens in Edo State. It demanded a reversal of all the astronomical increment of charges in the public hospital for easy access and affordability by commoners.