Governor Umaru Bago of Niger State has started the process of making the Ibrahim Babangida Specialist Hospital in Minna, the state's capital, bigger and more modern.
The IBB Specialist Hospital, which is a state-owned advanced medical facility, was set up in 1995.
Apart from the VIP wing, it has not been expanded further until the current government got involved.
A statement released by Ibrahim Bologi, the Chief Press Secretary to Bago, on Monday, quoted the governor as saying that after the renovation, the hospital will have a general outpatient department, patients' waiting area, intensive care unit, accident and emergency unit, VIP section, trauma center, doctors' quarters, cafeteria, and completion of a retention wall.
It also mentioned that new medical equipment would include endoscopy instruments for lower tract, endoscopy tower, monitor, camera head, 30-degree rigid telescope, resectoscope (bipolar and monopolar), diathermy pedal, endoscopy graspers, and biopsy forceps.
The statement also said, "Before this, some of the hospital's equipment was outdated, with falling structures and inadequate facilities in its wards.
Now, the hospital is beginning to look different, with the intervention of Gov Bago.
Gov Bago's administration is already converting the old Shiroro Hotel into the state's first University Teaching Hospital, and it also recognizes the need to modernize the IBB Hospital to meet global standards.
The governor mentioned that this would be achieved by equipping it with advanced facilities such as computed tomography, scan machines, hemodialysis machines, fully automated laboratory machines, echocardiography machines, ventilators, defibrillators, theatre operating lamps, operating tables, ultrasound machines, infusion pumps, and digital x-ray machines.
