Wednesday July 16, 2025
By TheNewsDESK |
By ETIM ETIM
Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Ekem Emmanuel John has confirmed that although the State government is planning to establish a world-class 350-bed hospital in Uyo, the existing Ibom Specialty Hospital (ISH) will not be abandoned.
Rather, the facility, built by the Akpabio administration and commissioned in 2015, would be further upgraded, reequipped and expanded to fit into the governor’s vision of building Ibom Medical City. Dr. John said both the 350-bed Ibom International Hospital (IIH) and Ibom Specialty Hospital would form part of the Ibom Medical City that would extend from Itam junction in Uyo to Sheraton Hotel, Ikot Ekpene. ‘
’In the whole of that stretch will also be pharmaceutical companies; medical research centres; and other medical facilities. Government is acquiring many hectares of land along that corridor to build the medical city which the governor promised during the campaigns’’, Dr. John told me this morning in an exclusive interview.
A controversy has erupted over the plan to build the Ibom International Hospital, with many commentators wondering why the government is abandoning the 10-year-old ISH to establish another facility whose services may be above the reach of the average citizen. After reading many such commentaries in the social media, some quite ill-informed, I put a call through to Dr. John. ‘
’I am in the office and I will call you after this meeting’’, he told me. ‘’I am coming over to you right away’’, I told him, and sped off to see him. I was particularly motivated by the need to hear the government’s side of the story and understand why there is a need for such a massive hospital in the state. My thinking has always been that we need two new general hospitals in Uyo to serve the burgeoning population in the city. Early this year, the governor told me: ‘’We are planning to do a lot in that area’’.
By the time I arrived the commissioner’s office, he was about leaving for an interview appointment with a radio station. He then invited me to join him in his car. He gave me a detailed briefing on why the government decided to build a new hospital and the plans for the ISH.
He said: ‘’The governor had commissioned a multidiscipline committee made of engineering and medical professionals to examine the adequacy of the ISH to the needs of our people, with special reference to the treatment of cancer and kidney failure – ailments which have become very rampant in the state.
“The committee made interesting recommendations to the government and this recommendation was further reviewed by a team of international medical professionals. Both committees noted that to build a cancer treatment plant, there must be an underground bunker to absorb the huge quantity of radiation typically emitted by such facilities.
“There is no such underground bunker at ISH and this is one of the reasons the government is building the Ibom International Hospital’’.
Dr. John however noted that the state government will, in addition, upgrade and expand the Ibom Specialty Hospital, assuring that the services to be offered by the IIH would be within the reach of Akwa Ibom people.
