Gov. Peter Mbah of Enugu State says his administration is open for collaboration and support in the healthcare sector to complement government’s efforts to revamp all levels of healthcare.

Mbah made the appeal on during the Officially Launching of Free Hospital Equipment and Medical Supplies to the state by Shola Agboola Goodwill Ambassador (SAGA) Foundation.

The medical equipment and supplies included: modern hospital beds, consumables, theatre tables, mattresses, all sorts of medical items used in hospitals, machines, tools, equipments, scanners and ultra-sound machines among others.

Represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Prof. Chidiebere Onyia, the governor said that his administration had invested hugely in rebuilding, revamping and total overhauling of the state’s healthcare system.

According to him, the state government is constructing 260 Type-2 Primary Healthcare Centres across the 260 political wards and some of them are completed; while secondary healthcare (General and Cottage Hospitals) are given a facelift.

“The state’s two teaching hospitals’ facilities have been upgraded and expanded; while our 300-bedded Quaternary International Hospital, meant to attract international medical tourism, is near completion.

“The government has set out plans to bring in state-of-the-art facilities and equipment for the game-changing first-grade healthcare facilities; however, there is room for collaboration and more support to the facilities,” he said.

Mbah urged foundations, corporate organisations and philanthropists to collaborate with the state government to ensure that residents get qualitative and satisfactory healthcare in the state at any level of healthcare service.

“The people and government of Enugu State are appreciative of SAGA Foundation for the medical equipments donated to the state worth millions of naira. We therefore call for more, seeing the vesting number of our facilities,” he said.

In a remark, the Founder of SAGA Foundation, Dr Shola Agboola, said that he started the foundation to uplift health care delivery in Nigeria and Africa after losing his father to tetanus in an ill-equipped health facility at the age of 13.

Agboola said that the Foundation had donated health equipment to over 10 states in Nigeria as well as three other countries in Africa within its 10 years in existence.

“I must commend the state government for a well-planned and well-invested healthcare system, which is a testament of the premium and quality of healthcare the government envisioned for her people,” he said.

Earlier, the state Commissioner for Health, Prof. George Ugwu, appreciated Gov. Mbah for using his international connections and extraordinary capacity to attract medical equipments and supplies from SAGA Foundation, Canada.

Ugwu said that the medical equipments and supplies were coming at a critical time as the government had already embarked on retooling and revamping all levels of healthcare to make the state a healthcare destination.

According to him, “we are going to deploy these medical equipments and supplies to areas of greatest needs in general and teaching hospitals and we are assuring everyone to put them to judicious and protective use.

“The current retooling and revamping of all levels of healthcare facilities have opened up space and we call for more collaboration and support in medical equipment and supplies to filling them up,” he also said.