Obaseki offsets medical bills of indigent patients

NO less than 16 patients, including a nursing mother who recently arrived from Libya, yesterday heaved a sigh of relief as their medical bills were cleared by the state governor, Godwin Obaseki, a gesture he said would be regular and spread across the three senatorial districts of the state.

The offsetting of the medical bills were carried out through the office of the Chief of Staff to the gover- nor, Taiwo Akerele. Eight of the beneficiaries were selected from the Central Hospital, Benin City, while the other eight were from the Stella Obasanjo Children and Women Hospital.

Represented by the Senior Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff, Jaspa Olowojoba, Obaseki said his administration was committed to improving facilities in all governmentowned hospitals across the state to render better healthcare services to the people.

One of the beneficiaries, a fibroid patient identified simply as Tina, said she has spent eight days after her fibroid operation. Happy Edoror, a Libyan returnee mother of a six weeks old baby, said her baby became ill shortly after they arrived from Libya and she was stranded unable to pay the hospital bills. She was elated by the intervention of the governor. She appealed that she should be given a job to do by the government after nursing her baby whose father, a Libyan she said still calls her.