L-R: Permanent Secretary, Rivers State Ministry of Health, Dr Vincent Wachukwu; Governor of Rivers State, Sir Siminalayi Fubara; outgoing President, Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Mazi Afam Osigwe and Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Prof Ngozi Odu, during the commissioning of the Neuropsychiatric Hospital and General Hospital Complex in Port Harcourt on Thursday.
Neuropsychiatric Hospital and 100-bed rehabilitation centre unveiled in Rumuigbo
For years, residents of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State had to look beyond their immediate communities for more advanced medical care.
Primary healthcare centres provided basic services, but when the need arose for more specialised treatment, patients and their relatives were often compelled to make the journey to facilities such as the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) or Braithwaite Memorial Hospital (BMH).
That reality changed on Tuesday when Governor Siminalayi Fubara commissioned two major health facilities in Rumuigbo, a new General Hospital and a substantially upgraded Neuropsychiatric Hospital.
The twin projects represent perhaps more than an addition to the state’s healthcare infrastructure. They reflect an attempt by the administration to confront two different but increasingly intertwined challenges: access to conventional healthcare and the growing burden of mental health problems and substance abuse.
At the heart of the intervention is a 100-bed rehabilitation centre designed to provide treatment and rehabilitation for people dealing with substance abuse and mental health challenges.
New General Hospital, Rumuigbo, Obio/Akpor LGA, Rivers State.
For Fubara, the project was born out of an encounter with a problem that could no longer be ignored.
He recalled that his administration’s intervention began after the Hospital Management Board invited him to inspect an old rehabilitation facility that was being constructed with limited funds.
What he saw, he said, convinced him that piecemeal intervention would not be enough.
“It was there and then that I said: Look, we have this very big compound, we need to rebuild, modernise and upgrade the standard of this Neuropsychiatric Hospital and that day, we started this journey,” the governor said.
The history of the facility makes the intervention significant. Conceived in 1970 and commissioned in 1977 with a 50-bed capacity, the Neuropsychiatric Hospital had, over the decades, become a reminder of the difficulties confronting mental healthcare infrastructure in the state.
Fubara said the condition of the premises had also created an unlikely and dangerous environment in which drug trafficking allegedly flourished.
“This premises was a drug trafficking centre,” he said, explaining that people could gain access to the compound under the guise of visiting or playing football while others allegedly used the opportunity to supply drugs to inmates.
Inside view of part of the new General Hospital, Rumuigbo, Port Harcourt.
The reconstructed facility, he said, has now been secured with fencing and controlled access.
But the governor’s broader concern extends beyond the physical infrastructure.
He described mental health and substance abuse as challenges of contemporary society, pointing to unemployment, depression and other psychological pressures as factors that can contribute to mental health problems.
The new rehabilitation centre, therefore, is intended not merely as a place where people with addiction problems can be confined, but as part of a structured effort to help patients regain stability and return to society.
“Even in developed countries, they send people to Rehabilitation Centres and they help bring you back to normalcy. So, what we have done here is to prepare for the current challenges of our time,” Fubara said.
The intervention also carries an important message about stigma.
The immediate past President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mazi Afam Osigwe, who was Special Guest of Honour at the commissioning, urged Nigerians to change the way they perceive people seeking mental healthcare.
Osigwe argued that mental healthcare should not be associated exclusively with severe psychiatric disorders, noting that stress, depression and personal crises can also require professional attention.
His appeal goes to the heart of one of the most persistent barriers to mental healthcare in Nigeria: stigma.
A modern facility can provide beds, laboratories, consulting rooms and treatment equipment, but its effectiveness ultimately depends on whether people are willing to seek help without fear of discrimination or social rejection.
The Rivers State Government’s intervention in Rumuigbo, however, goes beyond mental healthcare.
The new General Hospital is designed to bring secondary healthcare closer to the people of Obio/Akpor, one of the state’s largest local government areas.
According to Fubara, the absence of a general hospital meant that residents who needed care beyond what primary healthcare centres could provide had to travel to UPTH or BMH.
“We felt that Obio/Akpor deserves a General Hospital,” he said.
The facility is equipped with Accident and Emergency services, consulting rooms, pharmacy, laboratory and X-ray units, as well as delivery, maternity, antenatal and postnatal facilities.
It also has an operating theatre, surgical recovery room, Central Sterilising Services Department, Intensive Care Unit, Newborn Intensive Care Unit, paediatric wards and male and female general wards with 50 beds each.
Private wards and administrative offices complete the medical infrastructure.
The Neuropsychiatric Hospital, meanwhile, includes consulting rooms, pharmacy, laboratory, male and female 50-bed wards, a substance and drug-abuse rehabilitation centre and private wards.
The facility also has an electroconvulsive therapy centre, ICT centre, recreational spaces, meeting hall, canteen and mortuary.
Beyond the clinical facilities are supporting infrastructure including internal roads, landscaping, a 216-bed students’ hostel and staff quarters comprising 12 two-bedroom apartments.
Both hospitals have been equipped with modern diagnostic and treatment equipment and supplied with new ambulances.
A 500KVA transformer, 350KVA generating set and solar panels supported by inverter batteries capable of providing 120KVA are also part of the infrastructure.
For Governor Fubara, the projects fit into a broader philosophy of governance built around three essentials — education, healthcare and housing.
“By the special grace of God, we are trying our best in these three most important areas,” he said.
But the sustainability of the facilities may prove just as important as their commissioning.
Fubara appealed to the Obio/Akpor Local Government Council and the host community to regard the hospitals as their own and protect them against vandalism and theft.
“You’re the direct beneficiaries of it. Don’t say it is a government thing. It is in your place,” he charged.
The appeal is significant in a country where public infrastructure often deteriorates rapidly when communities feel little ownership of government projects.
The Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, Dr Gift Worlu, welcomed the projects, commending the governor for prioritising healthcare and acknowledging the need for a modern neuropsychiatric facility in the locality.
Yet, beyond the ceremonies, speeches and newly installed equipment, the real test of the Rumuigbo projects will be measured in lives.
It will be measured in the mother who no longer has to travel across the city for maternity care; the accident victim who receives emergency attention closer to home; the child requiring specialised treatment; and, perhaps most importantly, the young person struggling with substance abuse who finds a pathway to recovery rather than a lifetime of stigma and neglect.
In that sense, Fubara’s “double” in Rumuigbo is not simply about commissioning two hospitals.
It is an investment in bringing healthcare closer to the people, while acknowledging that a functioning health system must also respond to the less visible wounds of depression, addiction, psychological distress and mental illness.
The buildings are new. The greater challenge now is ensuring that the promise they represent remains alive long after the commissioning ceremonies have ended.
