FORMER Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr Leke Pitan has recounted how the health care system was before the coming of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He declared that it was so bad that there used to be dead bodies on the roads that nobody would care to remove and motorists would just make detours, adding that the bodies would be there for days and sometimes weeks.
Dr Pitan added that then, Alimosho had no single general hospital, despite being the most populated. In addition, other areas such as Mushin Local Government, Somolu, Ifako Ijaiye, Ibeju Lekki, Amuwo-Odofin, and Ojo Local Government Areas had no single general hospital.
Also, for primary health centres, there were a little above 200, most of which were dilapidated and there was no public ambulance service that served the public on demand as a matter of right.
"The ambulance service that we now have that we call Lagos State Ambulance Service (LASAMBUS) and are placed at key vantage points to serve the public free of charge, was created by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration targeted to saving people from death regardless of their financial or social status without asking any questions.
"For the next 24 hours after you are picked, you are not to pay anything; you are just to be saved. The concern of the administration was to save lives, and this was done free of charge,” he said.
The Former Health Commissioner also recalled how Tinubu set up 50 Primary Healthcare Centres stating that it was Asiwaju who mandated them to establish a primary health centre in every ward.
In Alimosho, there were abandoned structures and Asiwaju approved that those structures should be completed as a matter of urgency and that was why Alimosho got a general hospital that is still there today. A lot of structures were later added.
These giant strides in the health sector, he said, show that Bola Tinubu is fit to replicate his achievements in Lagos if he becomes the President come 2023.