A request has been made to the Federal Ministry of Health to up-grade the Community Health Clinic in Obukpa, within the precincts of the University of Nigeria Nsukka Campus to a Federal Medical Centre. In an interaction with the Honourable Minister for Health, Senator ChukwukaUtazi recalled that the Clinic was the original site of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital but a combination of bad politics and policy moved the Teaching Hospital to Enugu, and latter to its present location in ItukuOzalla, at a time a certain level of physical structures had been built at Obukpa preparatory to a commencement of hospital operations.
The dislocation did not uproot the specific purpose structures at Obukpa which is now being run as a community health clinic, a basic health institution. The Senator argued that with over 51% of the population of Enugu State resident in the Enugu North Senatorial District and the massive student population in Nsukka, and with no tertiary hospital to handle referral services for the various secondary and primary health institutions, time had come to up-grade the clinic to a Federal Health Centre.
Although the Ministry of Health countered that Enugu State has more than fair share of Federal Health Institutions including UNTH, Orthopedic and Psychiatric Hospitals and that it might be difficult to site another federal tertiary hospital in the time-being in Enugu State, the Senator got assurances that a serious look will be taken of what can be done to optimize the infrastructure in the Health Clinic in Obukpa while contingency plans will be made to supply the needed equipment in the Clinic.