Kwara State Government has commenced the rehabilitation of the old University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH).

Speaking at the flag-off ceremony at the old hospital now christened General Hospital, Ilorin, in Ilorin last Wednesday, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmad, said rehabilitation of the old teaching hospital would be completed there in six months.

"With the relocation of UITH to its permanent site, it has become necessary to rehabilitate and convert the hospital to a first class general hospital to boost the availability of accessible and qualitative healthcare services in the state", he said.

The governor also said that contracts for the rehabilitation of Offa, Omu-Aran, Share and Kaiama hospitals would soon be awarded with an expected completion time of six months.

He said that his administration would also rehabilitate an additional nine general hospitals and construct three new ones in the next three years, adding that the measure was to make affordable healthcare available to the people of the state, with the determination to strengthen the primary health care in the state.

Governor Ahmad also said his aim was to ensure that quality healthcare was made available to people within a 500-metre radius through establishment of additional comprehensive health centres, adding that the goal was that every ward in the state would have staffed health centres in the next three years.

He said such secondary health centres in the state as the new General Hospital, Ilorin would then be positioned to service clusters of comprehensive health centres in the locality.

The governor, who said that only a healthy workforce and entrepreneurs could be productive and make valuable contributions to the state's economic development, added that quality healthcare was critical to people's well-being, especially talking about human capital development.