Chief Medical Director (CMD), Stephen Hwande
By TYAV SAM TYAV, Makurdi –
Benue State University Teaching Hospital Makurdi has started treating Benue pensioners free of charge even as it has also recorded its first In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) delivery at the Muhamadu Buhari Mother and Child annex.
The Chief Medical Director (CMD), Stephen Hwande, disclosed this on Thursday while briefing newsmen at the auditorium hall of Muhamadu Buhari Mother and Child Hospital, Benue State University Teaching Hospital Annex Makurdi.
Dr Hwande informed that Governor Hyacinth Alia led government is for the masses, explaining that the policy of treating Benue pensioners free of charge would be by issuing patients cards for free, giving them medical consultations for free and as well giving them bed treatments for free but leaving them with only drugs to pay for.
The Medical Director also disclosed that Benue State University Teaching Hospital is the first among public hospitals in Northern Nigeria to record the IVF Case, and the cheapest in the country at the rate of four hundred thousand naira (#400,000) as against Five million naira (#5,000,000) or two million naira (#2,000,000) respectively.
Hwande emphasized that the subsidization of the IVF case is a deliberates act of the Governor Hyacinth Alia’s led administration to ensure that the masses enjoy cheap healthcare services.
The Chief Medical Director, who commended the governor for voting the sum of eighty two billion naira in the 2025 annual budget for Health added that a good percentage is for Benue State University Teaching Hospital and it shall be well used.
According to him, the previous administrations left behind a bulk load of salary areas amounting to over eight hundred million naira (#800,000,000), but eighty percent (80%) of the arreas has been cleared in the twenty one (21) months of the incumbent government through the intervention of Governor Alia.
He noted that Benue State University Teaching Hospital Staff are among the highest paid teaching hospital staff in Nigeria. He added.
The CMD noted that Benue State government has released the sum of one billion, six hundred million naira (#1,600,000,000) for installation and supply of water at Benue State University Teaching Hospital while the VIP section of the hospital was currently undergoing renovation even as the supply of drugs was steady with Cancer activities set to commence next week.
He revealed that “the hospital also handles fertility care perfectly with successful birth delivery at the rate of five thousand naira (#5,000) only in a programme known as ‘ Help of Mother and Baby’s which is part of social corporate services for the Benue masses”.
