By Haruna Gimba
The Gombe State Government on Tuesday said it spent N900 million to equip the snakebite treatment hospital and research centre in Kaltungo.
The state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr. Kennedy Ishaya, told the newsmen in Gombe that the equipment had already been installed in the 200-bed capacity hospital.
He said “the newly constructed centre is now fully set; we have received a consignment of hospital equipment and had installed some and now in the process of installing the others. “We have employed the first batch of workers, about 42 labourers, cleaners, gardeners and security guards; we are just waiting for the inauguration of the hospital.”
He added that nurses would be deployed to the centre from other hospitals, as well as those that would graduate from the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Gombe.
According to him, the centre also has an eye clinic and dental unit. “The eye clinic is for patients who were bitten by spouting cobra, as they may likely be affected in the eyes,” he explained.
Dr. Ishaya said the dental unit would take care of those bleeding in the mouth and other complications caused by snakebite.
He explained that the hospital would be linked with the Specialist Hospital Gombe in case there were patients that would need dialysis after snakebite because of renal failure. “Snake poison is terrible, virtually every system of the body could be affected,” Dr. Ishaya said.
A correspondent report that the snakebite treatment centre is currently occupying one ward at the General Hospital, Kaltungo.
