Virile health sector needs private support — UITH CMD

The Chief Medical Director (CMD), University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), Professor Dasliva Yussuf, has canvassed private support for the nation’s health sector believed to have been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yussuf, a professor of Behavioural Science, said the viral outbreak had since its emergence weakened global public economy, adding that only the private sector could assist in its prompt revival.

He made the remark yesterday, in Ilorin during the donations of 100 hospital bed sets, mattresses and medical accessories to the UITH by Sir Emeka Offor Foundation, in conjunction with Savannah Centre for Diplomacy and Democracy and Khadimiyya Foundation.

He promised judicious use of the items valued at several millions of naira, just as he disclosed that the hospital under his leadership would continue to serve as a model to others in the areas of teaching, learning and healing.

Speaking at the event, the leader of the team of donors, Mr. Chris Ezekiel, a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police, said the donations, in its second phase, would be extended to 20 other teaching hospitals across the nation.

Ezekiel described his boss, Offor, as a patriotic Nigerian, who at all times looked for opportunities to share his God’s given resources with the less privileged.

Describing a healthy nation as one poised for socio, political and economic developments, he said the foundations contracted the fabrication and assemblage of the wooden beds and mattresses to indigenous fabricators and designers to boost the nation’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP).

Ezekiel recounted the innumerable contributions of Emeka Offor Foundation to the eradication of wild poliomyelitis in the country, urging all stakeholders to sustain the gains to prevent a relapse of the deadly disease.