The Akwa Ibom State Governor, Pastor Umo Eno, has promised to establish 10 new dialysis centres, one for each federal constituency in the state.
The decision was announced during the inauguration of the Enoch and Folu Adeboye Dialysis Centre at Immanuel General Hospital, Eket, donated by the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).
Governor Eno also directed the immediate recruitment and training of professionals to meet the manpower needs of these new dialysis centres; noting that the proposed centres would be fully operational by June 2024.
To ensure the efficiency of the inaugurated centre and prevent underutilization, he ordered the deployment of relevant personnel from state hospitals to the new facility.
He said, “I am directing the Commissioner for Health and critical stakeholders of the state to ensure that they provide a dialysis centre in each federal constituency and guarantee me that between now and June 2024, those dialysis centres will be available and functional.
“I have approved the deployment of staff to the centre and I have given the Commissioner for Health approval to look for qualified people to come and work here. I have also directed the Head of the Civil Service to work with the Ministry of Health and the Civil Service Commission to absorb them as quickly as possible so that we can have permanent staff here. We don’t want to have equipment here, while we don’t have the manpower to operate them.”
The governor highlighted the importance of aggressive sensitization on kidney-related ailments and measures to checkmate their occurrence while he instructed the Ministry of Health to collaborate with the Ministry of Information and the Office of the Chief Press Secretary to undertake the sensitisation.
While Governor Eno commended the generosity of Pastor Enoch Adeboye and his wife Folu, who, through the church’s humanitarian arm, ‘His Love Foundation,’ partnered with the government to provide medical services, particularly for kidney diseases; he urged other religious and business organizations to follow this example of robust corporate social responsibility to contribute to the development of the state.
“This huge investment speaks loudly to the fact that the government needs to partner with the other layers of society to ensure that we advance development across sectors of our economy,” he said.
Earlier, the RCCG Intercontinental Overseer, Christian Social Responsibility, Pastor Idowu Iluyomade, expressed that the establishment of the dialysis centre in Eket was driven by a passion for humanity and the desire to assist those afflicted by kidney diseases.
He disclosed that ‘His Love Foundation’ had set up 12 dialysis centres across Nigeria and was pleased to set the 13th in Eket, Akwa Ibom State, among other interventions.
The state Commissioner for Health, Prof. Augustine Umoh, praised the Government-RCCG partnership, stating that dialysis is an effective way to manage kidney failure.
