The Akwa Ibom State Government has rejected trending speculation that the multi -billion naira Ibom Specialist Hospital is being sidelined as the government moves ahead with the new Ibom International Hospital.
The state’s health commissioner Dr. Ekem Emmanuel John said the two facilities belong to the same healthcare plan, pointing to a year of heavy spending on upgrades at the specialist hospital as proof the government has no intention of walking away from it.
He described the abandonment claims as “conjecture not supported by facts.” He explained that Governor Umo Eno approved the rehabilitation of the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit in late 2025, including the procurement of new ICU beds and monitoring equipment, and separately approved funding to maintain the hospital’s MRI machine, whose upkeep requires costly and frequent helium refills.
Dr. John noted that the hospital’s CT scanner had become impossible to maintain after the manufacturer discontinued spare parts. It was replaced with a 128-slice CT scanner installed in February. He argued that the scale of this spending speaks for itself, saying “nobody puts in billions of naira into a hospital you are planning to abandon.”
The commissioner explained that the new International Hospital is not a replacement for the existing facility but serves as an “anchor tenant” within the larger project known as the Ibom Medical City, which will also include the Ibom Multi-Specialty Hospital and a new Advanced Diagnostic Centre.
He added that the project is modelled on healthcare hubs such as the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Dubai Healthcare City, and will include hotel accommodation at the nearby Four Points by Sheraton for patients’ relatives.
Dr. John maintained that the initiative is intended to curb medical tourism, which he estimated costs Nigeria between $2 billion and $3 billion annually, and to reduce state government spending on sending patients abroad for procedures such as kidney transplants and cancer treatment.
He revealed that the state’s kidney transplant programme has carried out close to 1,000 procedures and is now attracting patients from Europe and other African countries.
The commissioner also announced that the state has recruited 2,854 health workers, with appointment letters being issued and documentation ongoing for others.
He explained that a shortage of qualified biomedical engineers during the recruitment exercise had prompted plans to establish a College of Nursing, a College of Health Technology and Biomedical Engineering, and a College of Optometry.
Dr. John clarified that a hospital under construction in Eket, which some residents believed was only a mortuary, is in fact a full general hospital; the mortuary was built first because it doubled as storage for construction equipment.
He added that the Mother and Child Hospital in Ibiono Ibom has been commissioned and is expected to begin operations within a week, once newly recruited staff are deployed, with expansion work continuing alongside service delivery.
On medical education, Dr. John disclosed that the Akwa Ibom State University Teaching Hospital and its College of Medicine are progressing, with contractors expected back on site in two to three weeks. He stated that he expects the teaching hospital to be operational with a Chief Medical Director by November, and the College of Medicine to admit its first students before the end of 2026.
