Date: 2020-09-21

· Cottage Hospital Pakata for upgrade

Kwara State Government has restored the dispensary in Ubandawaki Ward of Ilorin West Local government to its old status amid ongoing efforts to rebuild and re-equip the facility for public use, many years after the public facility was converted to a secretariat of the then ruling PDP in the area.

The dispensary was one of the health facilities that were constructed across the state by the late Admiral Muhammed Lawal in 2003. However, it ceased to serve the purpose when the government of Senator Bukola Saraki gifted it to the PDP as its secretariat as part of its anti-Lawal policy.

"Today, this facility has regained its status and the government has now directed that it should be renovated and be used for its original purpose. The whole world was shocked when politicians converted this health facility to their secretariat but nobody could challenge the impunity. We thank God for a new dawn," Dr Mohammed Ghali Alaya, who led a government team to inspect the facility, said.

He was accompanied during the inspection by Alhaji Abdulrasaq Jiddah.

Dr Ghali said the government has also directed the conversion of the Pakata Primary Health Centre, which is an Outpatient Department (OPD) in Ipata-Oloje, to a standard cottage hospital with a maternity and children ward in line with the original plan that dated back to the 1970s.

The OPD had been conceived on 5th November 1971 under the late AGF Abdul-Razaq SAN (father of the Governor) to metamorphose to a cottage hospital and serve as an alternative to the now congested Children Hospital in Centre Igboro (Ilorin) but the idea was later abandoned.

The AGF SAN was at the time the Commissioner for Health under the late military Governor David Bamigboye.

"Because the facility is a pro-people legacy of his father, it was an emotional scene when the government team announced the decision of the government under AGF's son to restore the plan to upgrade the centre to the old plan. The government is about to start working there very soon as part of its plans to deepen people's access to basic health care," Dr Ghali said.