Posted by By Amby Uneze, Calabar on
The order on Churches and healing homes operating in Cross River State to stop admiting patients in their premises by the State Government has been criticized, even as government was accused of bias and carrying out a threat order as if it was operating under a military regime.
The order on Churches and healing homes operating in Cross River State to stop admiting patients in their premises by the State Government has been criticized, even as government was accused of bias and carrying out a threat order as if it was operating under a military regime.
President of the Pentecostal Church of Nigeria Inc. (PCNI), Rev. Effiong Efiom, while baring his mind to THISDAY over the recent action, said that government should continue in the quest for provision of developmental infrastructures and stop dabbling into issues of spiritual and religious affairs.
Government had last week warned Churches and healing homes to desist from using their premises as hospitals where their members are referred to whenever they are sick, insisting that any further report of such action will attract the wrath of government and urged them to take their sick members to government hospitals for adequate medical attention.
But according to Rev. Efiom, government can provide the necessary amenities needed by those churches and healing homes to make sure that the place meets up with the sanitary and hygienic condition required by government instead of threatening to ban or close them because they provide healing to the people.
Efiom said those who are mental and could not be taken or cured by the Psychiatric Hospitals, and eventually taken to the churches/healing homes where they are healed through divine intervention, stating that government should instead dialogue with the church leaders over the matter rather than throw a stone at them.
The cleric who was once a broadcaster with the Cross River Broadcasting Corporation (CRBC) urged government to evolve a way and manner of ameliorating the problems of those receiving healing in the churches/healing home, which would go a long way to assist psychologically to the healing of the patients.