Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, says the church has spent N61 billion on intervention projects across the country.
He spoke at the inauguration of Enoch and Folu Adeboye Dialysis Center at Immanuel General Hospital on Monday.
The hospital is located in Eket Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.
Adeboye, represented by Pastor Idowu Iluyomade, Intercontinental Overseer, Christian Social Responsibility of the RCCG, said the centre had been equipped with three brand new dialysis machines, water treatment plant and a 130 KVA generator.
“We have spent over N61 billion on intervention projects in Nigeria,” Adeboye said.
He noted that no fewer than 154 million people had benefited from the various intervention projects in the last five years.
He added that the RCCG had 1,200 functioning dialysis machines in their health facilities across the country.
He said: “The initial beneficiary states are Ogun, Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Bauchi, Borno, Anambra, Enugu, Akwa Ibom and Abuja.
“This dialysis center will be the 27th in the series of our specialised medical intervention: Intensive Care Units, dialysis centres, cancer screening centres, Primary Health Centers donated by the Love Foundation.”
Adeboye explained that the foundation had established intensive care centers in states including Lagos, Plateau, Ogun and Ondo.
He added: “Today we are dedicating this dialysis centre and decision to invest in the establishment of dialysis center all over the nation as part of the foundation’s initiative for the needy.
“We have 48,000 operating dialysis centers all over the nation and present in 197 nations of the world.”
He lamented that the foundation had 225 centres of dialysis in the country, adding that yet the number could not address the problem of 220 million people in the country.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Love Foundation is a charity arm of the Redeemed Christian Church of God involved in various intervention projects in the areas of Socials, Education, Health, Media, Business, Art and Culture, Governance and Sports.
Adeboye thanked Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State for siting the dialysis center in Eket in particular and Akwa Ibom State at large.
Eno, who inaugurated the dialysis centre, said similar dialysis centres would be established in each of the 10 federal constituencies in the state.
He said: “I am directing the Commissioner for Health, with critical stakeholders, to ensure they provide in each federal constituency in the state a dialysis centre.
“Commissioner should guarantee me that between now till June 2024, all the 10 dialysis centers will be ready because we need to ensure that we get these facilities across to our people who have to travel too far to do dialysis.”
Eno noted that his administration had invested heavily in Primary Health Centres, saying for the additional centre inaugurated, the state government had already approved staff to be deployed to Immanuel General Hospital.
He explained that staff deployed to the hospital would be trained in the 10 federal constituencies in the state.
In his remarks, Prof. Augustine Umoh, the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Health, explained that one of the ways to manage kidney ailments was through dialysis.
Umoh said that the state government had dialysis machines in Ibom Specialist Hospital in Uyo and General Hospital at Away in Onna LGA.