By Jonathan Ugbal: Government House Correspondent
The Federal Government has said that the Calabar Pharmaceutical company project of the Cross River State Government is a product of deep vision and pledged its support for the project.
The minister for health, Professor Isaac Adewole gave the commendation, Monday while on an inspection tour of the project after laying the foundation stone for the Ayadecare referral hospital in Calabar during his two-day visit to the state.
Mr. Adewole said the initiative requires the support of the federal government.
“It is really an incredible and fantastic layout. And this, to me, represents vision and that vision we must support. You can actually see things moving, drugs will flow to the referral centre and even flow out of the state to other parts of the country, so we are impressed with the layout,” Adewole said.
He continued: “The factory will also delve into vaccine production which we seriously need in the country,” adding that, it will check a situation where, “almost all our vaccines come from outside the country.”
Mr. Adewale was accompanied by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Mr. Olanrewaju Tejuoso who said CalaPharm will check the over dependence on other countries for vaccines and outlined steps taken by the Senate to support the health sector.
“Recently, we introduced the legislative network, that is, all the committees in the Houses of Assembly in the country to gather together with the minister to know what other states are doing in health, so that we don’t keep on appropriating at the national level and doing the same thing in the states for proper cooperation,” Mr. Tejuoso said.
Cross River Governor, Senator Ben Ayade who was represented by his deputy, Professor Ivara Esu, affirmed that health remains one of the major policy thrust of his administration in a bid to ensure that the people live healthy.
“We want to make sure that we reduce medical tourism as much as possible from Nigeria. We don’t see why we should be going to India when we can equally have everything we need here from point of manpower to the quality of treatment,” he said.
Ayade thanked the health minister and the Senate Committee Chairman on Health, Senator Olanrewaju Tejuoso, for offering professional advice that will help in the delivery of the project.
Mr. Adewole is expected to depart Calabar for Abuja Tuesday evening after cutting the tapes to signal the handing over of luxurious buses donated by developing partners to the state which was preceded by his participation at the maiden Cross River State health summit.
