Mobil, UK hospital support UBTH with equipment
From Mike Osunde,
Benin
AS part of efforts to provide infrastructure in the health and the education sectors, Mobil Nigeria Unlimited has donated surgical equipment worth over N2 million to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH).
The hospital has also received a mortuary, consisting of 36 bays and some hospital equipment from two hospitals in the United Kingdom.
According to UBTH officials, the two containers carrying the gifts, were the manifestation of "inter-continental universities approachment".
Mobil's donation, The Guardian learnt formed part of the oil companies gifts to four tertiary hospitals and some institutions in the country.
The 36-bay mortuary with many accessories such as manual body-lifting trolley, dissecting tables and lamps, came form Basildon University, where a Nigerian consultant Histopathologist and an Alumnus of the Medical School of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), Dr. Peter Ozua, negotiated and secured the donation from the hospital.
Another Nigerian consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, N. J. Nwabineli, secured a donation from the South Tyneside District Hospital.
The donations included delivery and hospital beds, examination couches, trolleys, side-lockers and gas cylinder carriers.
The Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee of UBTH, Dr. Alfred Ehigieba, had initiated the request that resulted in the donations from the UK hospitals and Mobil.
According to Ehigiegba, a group of Nigerian doctors, who did their residency training in the UBTH but are practising in the UK, had met last year in Manchester to access the need of the hospital and the Medical school with the aim of assisting the institutions.
Receiving the gifts, UBTH's Chief Medical Director, Professor Eugene Okpere, lauded the gesture of Mobil, hoping its donation would serve as a lead for other corporate bodies and individuals to make similar donations to the hospital.
Thanking the UK donors, Okpere commended the individuals whose contributions had made the donations possible.
