A $30 million health centre has been commissioned at Bamia, Soesdyke-Linden Highway.
The facility was commissioned by Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony when he travelled to the mining town on Friday to hand over a ventilator and oxygen concentrator to boost COVID-19 treatment in the region, the Department of Public Information (DPI) reported. 
Minister Anthony told the health workers at Bamia that the facility would better provide primary healthcare for the area. Primary healthcare is the backbone of the healthcare system, he said.
“You can do a lot of preventative work at the primary care level, and if we are very effective at the primary care level, it prevents a lot of complications and would prevent a lot of diseases from going upwards in the chain. So, what you do here is extremely important and therefore, we want to work with you, want to facilitate you to ensure that you can do your jobs better,” Dr Anthony is quoted as saying by DPI.
Minister Anthony acknowledged that a major challenge during the pandemic was a slowdown in the national vaccination programme. He, therefore, called on primary healthcare workers to restart this exercise.
“We want you to speed up or accelerate that process so that we keep those high numbers that we always get when we do our immunisation programme for the children. So, we’ll work along with you, the services that you offer here whether it’s antenatal, postnatal, other primary care services, we’ll see how we can collaborate with you to make that better,” he said.
Dr Anthony, the DPI report stated, also encouraged the healthcare workers to capitalise on the training opportunities the Government is offering to improve and expand their skillsets.
Bamia is located about half a mile from Amelia’s Ward. The new Bamia Phase Three Health Centre caters to about 1500 residents. It will also serve neighbouring Bamia Drive, Phase Two and Three Amelia’s Ward and Bamia Highway.
