On the 16th of February 2018, Former President Olusegun Obasanjo cut the tapes to open Bayelsa’s Multi-billion Diagnostic Centre in Yenagoa. It was an epochal event as it terminated Nigerians insatiable urge to spend billion of hard earned foreign currency for frivolous health tourism abroad sometimes at government expense.
The Bayelsan Diagnostic Centre is a medical masterpiece and Eldorado with incontestable state-of-the-art facilities. It is not only the best in Nigeria but among the best in Africa and comparable to those in Europe with a highly skilled and equipped American Team contracted to be bequeathed to Bayelsans after the ongoing transitional training period. The diagnostic centre in Bayelsa is equipped to American standards and operation which prompted President Olusegun Obasanjo to advise Governor Seriake Dickson to give greater publicity to the abundant health facilities in Bayelsa State. The former President thereupon promised to do his next Medical test at the Bayelsa Diagnostic Centre. President Olusegun Obasanjo made good his promise five months later in July 2018 when he gave a global boost to the Bayelsa Diagnostic Centre Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is a former Nigerian President many have decided to impugn and discredit but his Nigerianness and truthfulness cannot be successfully challenged as he gave a very high distinction in his evaluation of the Bayelsa Diagnostic Miracle.
Governor Seriake Dickson believes that only healthy, strong and vibrant Bayelsans can drive his restoration train to berth at the various developmental stations dotted all over Bayelsa State. The peoples’ governor believes that a healthy people are a wealthy people. Governor Dickson’s investment in health is not restricted to the diagnostic centre which is just a tip of the ice berg.
The Governor has laid out an all inclusive medical platform which could only be referred to as a medical Eldorado, a near utopian achievement, a medical feat, rarely witnessed in this era of lack of accountability. Listen to Governor Seriake Dickson, “from the month a woman (Bayelsan) becomes pregnant, she becomes government property. She will be registered on the state Data Base and is placed on a special allowance….. this is one of the things I will like to leave behind, just like education”
And if you think you have heard the last on Governor Dickson’s extraordinary incursion into the medical arena, wait for this. The introduction of the Bayelsa State Health Insurance Scheme is the icing on the cake of Bayelsa’s health development program. The BSHIS is a highly strategic and sustainable model for funding the Bayelsan Health Care Program through providing guarantee for healthcare providers in the state. This is similar to America’s Obamacare which has been rejected by America’s incumbent president. It will not be out of place if we call the BSHIS Dicksoncare not merely because Gov. Dickson introduced it but most especially because he is a very caring, sympathetic, vision-driven and empathic human species.
The BSHIS became an instant success as it is a Silicon Valley introduction in any part of the civilized clime. Families that hitherto shunned hospitals and medical facilities due to penury immediately took advantage of this great opportunity made available by the restoration program of Gov. Seriake Dickson. Healthcare was brought down from its Olympian heights to the valleys of commonplace humanity, those commoners referred to as “Le damn de laterre” by Franz Fanon. Bayelsans are a lucky breed of people because the Restoration Programme also provided for the Bayelsa Drug Mart and Pharmaceutical Centre which has the onerous responsibility of warding off fake and expired drugs from the state. This pharmaceutical centre will augment and physically monitor and make NAFDAC’s role in the state less cumbersome.
But perhaps, the most audacious and capital intensive medical enterprise of Gov. Dickson’s Restoration Program is the provision of specialist hospitals and health facilities in all the 105 wards and 8 local governments of the state. This great feat has couriered health care to the farthest crannies of Bayelsa State and made Bayelsans a healthier, merrier and happier people to the glory of God.
Early in 2018 a medical team from the Nigerian society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics visited health facilities in the state and made very flattering comments about the solid health care foundation the Governor Seriake Dickson government has established in Bayelsa State. The Professor Oluwarotimi Akinola led team rated facilities on ground among the best in the country and comparable even to those in some western countries.
Governor Dickson’s style resonates with the people because he is an inseparable and integral grain of the people he is serving. He sees himself as the peoples replica and numero uno representative as the governor of Bayelsa State and the Governor- General of the Izon Nation. Liston to Gov, Seriake Dickson, “I am from the people, not Aje Butter (elite). That is why people should understand that the focus of the policy of my government is about the policy of supporting the common man, because it is the common man we are here to serve”. This governor believes that the vulnerable common people should be the target group for any developmental or restoration project of his government. And he is talking it and doing it.
There is no doubt that this bulldozer governor is set to rewrite the history of Bayelsa State not only in the carriage of healthcare but in all areas of human endeavour and comfort including education, agriculture (food/crop production) housing, security, energy, religion, infrastructure et al.
Posterity will never forget Governor Seriake Dickson’s innumerable legacies which have pulled out Bayelsans out of acute penury into an era of hope, happiness and enormous prosperity.
Nanaghan wrote in from Lagos.
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