A cross section of residents of Abia State has urged the government to guard against transformation of the proposed $1.3bn medical city in the state to elite facility when completed.
The residents spoke to LEADERSHIP in Umuahia, the state capital as the projected which the government said will be funded by development partners is about flagged-off.
Expressing delight with the proposed project, they stressed that when completed it should attend to every strata of the society as conceptualized by the governor, Alex Otti.
“Much as it will be of international standard and globally focused to earn revenue for the state, it should also provide services for the less privileged,” said one of them, Orji Otta.
According to Lady Roslyn Emerem,” It should not be as the case where „poor church members would labour to build a school and but their children can‘t attend them due to the cost.”
They also lauded the governor for placing the health sector among his priorities, noting that since the birth of the resent democracy era in the country, the state had not had it so good in all sectors.
It would be recalled that the state commissioner for Health, Enoch Uche had recently conducted journalists round the site of the proposed project at Mbasaa in Isialangwa South local government area of the state.
„The city is one of the landmark projects of His Excellency, Dr. Alex Otti,l. It is the first quaternary hospital in this country that would take care of all levels of complicated healthcare issues.
„Whether you are talking about radiotherapy, you‘re talking about radiosurgery, radio-oncology, you‘re talking about emerging therapies, you‘re talking about the neuro chemotherapeutic agents.
„It will also take care of all forms of brain, spine, orthopedic, organ transplantation, cardiac transplant, cardiac surgeries, name it, any level of surgery. There will also be a place for cosmetic surgery.
„Owing to his transparent record and of course his relentless visionary strides he was able to attract the MKP International Holdings, to finance, to fund, develop, build, operate and transfer this facility.“
He said „the globally reputable engineering procurement construction consortium“ already wishes to start the project even before its flag off. So, everything is ready and you can see the, very nice landscape,
The commissioner, who maintained that the city would have a 1,000-bed ultra-modern healthcare, asserted that it could cater for every healthcare need of the people.
*Apart from the ultra-modern medical facility, there also going to have a tourist city. The medical step-down hotel, there will be a five-star hotel and there will be another five-star tourist hotel.‘
