Ajimobi declares free health care for children under five

Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State has declared free health services to children under the age of five in the state.
He has also declared free pre-and post-natal health care for pregnant women in the state.
He stated this on Friday in Ibadan, the state capital while declaring open the 51st annual delegates’ conference of the Nigeria Medical Association.
He added that his administration would cater for the health care of the aged, who were above the age of 70.
He said the steps were born out of his administration’s desire to provide good health care for the people of the state.
Ajimobi said it was unacceptable to him that doctors in the employ of the state had been on strike for about seven months.
He explained that it was his desire to reverse the trend that informed the choice of medical doctors as one of the first set of professionals he had consultation with within 48 hours of his inauguration as the state governor.
He said, “Indeed, the wellness or otherwise of a people is a function of the state of health of their doctors and health workers.
“This administration came on board with no illusion about the quality of health it wants for its hospitals.
“During our interface with the various groups of professionals before and after the elections, we stumbled on pathetic cases of the plight of medical doctors in our state. “We were appalled by the abandonment of the sacred place that a healthy nation places its health providers, in our state. We were horrified by the paucity of incentives for doctors to practise their profession in our state.
“It is unacceptable to this administration that doctors have been on strike now for upward of seven months in Oyo State.
“Not only do we want to reverse the trend of placing our doctors at the lowest rung of the ladder, we intend to make the practice of medicine in Oyo State rank side-by-side with what is obtainable in other parts of Nigeria, if not better.”
Ajimobi promised that he would work to make the state general hospitals indeed general in the fluid access of the people to them and make them places where the sick would find, with the input of the “Almighty God,” cure and healing.
By Olalekan Adetayo, Ibadan                        Courtesy Of: Punch