Nigeria: NNPC decides to build hospitals in 12 states across the country

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its subsidiaries have decided to build hospitals worth N21 billion in 12 states across the six geopolitical zones of the country, according to a news report by This Day.

Minister of Health (State), Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora has revealed this at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Emergency and Infectious Disease Hospital in Maiduguri, Borno State, at the weekend.

Mamora has said that the health care delivery sector is currently witnessing major infrastructural development that would outlive the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said health care facilities being put in place across the country is a major step to address the infrastructural deficit in the health sector.

The minister disclosed that the hospital project across the 12 states is a joint project between the NNPC and its partners, which N21 billion has been budgeted to construct them in the six geopolitical zones of the country.

He noted that the project, which groundbreaking was being done, would not only help to tackle the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic but would assist to address the health care challenges in the North-east region and beyond.

Mamora said, "This project is going to create a kind of turnaround in the health care delivery system of this country, and we are very grateful to the NNPC and its partners for this."

"COVID-19 pandemic has destabilized the entire system-socially, culturally, economically, religiously, and so on. For us in Nigeria that we hitherto had what we call weak health system, and with COVID-19 emergence, it's like exposing that weakness in our health system, "he added.