Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health, Dr
Osagie Ehanire has disclosed Federal Government (FG) approval of 120 million
naira intervention fund for the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Asaba.
Dr Ehanire made the disclosure while on
official tour of the hospital last Friday. He said the fund is to assist the
hospital in upgrading its facilities.
“The Federal Ministry of Health and the National
Health Scheme have put together an intervention fund to the tune of N120
million for the FMC Asaba to assist the hospital.
“The FMC is expected to use the fund according
to its work plan in upgrading the hospital and to enable it render improved services
to the public,” said the health minister.
The minister further stated that his visit to
the hospital was to access its facilities and working conditions in order to
see ways the federal government can assist in improving repositioning of the
FMC for better service delivery.
He noted that paucity of funds was a major
challenge facing every sector of the nation’s economy, attributing the
challenge to the huge drop in oil revenue in the global market.
Ehanire said: “There is challenge everywhere
in the country and this is because of the drop in global oil price which has
our revenue to crash drastically. “We are also aware that the restiveness in
the Niger Delta has hampered our production capacity, causing the nation huge
loss”.
The minister however noted that the FMC is
facing so much pressure in service delivery, due to the failure of primary
health centres across the country to discharge their responsibilities to the
public.
He said the FMC was primarily established to
undertake tertiary health service delivery, but regrettably, the hospital has
been saddled with treatment of minor primary health cases.
“The Federal Medical Centres are not supposed
to be treating cases of catarrh and cough; these minor ailments should be
handled by the primary health centres.
“But because our primary healthcare centres
are not functioning well as they are supposed to do, many of these cases now
come to the FMC,” Ehanire noted.
He said that the federal government would
revitalize and reposition primary health centres in all political wards across
the nation to discharge their primary responsibilities to the public.
Earlier, the acting Chief Medical Director
(CMD) of the FMC Asaba, Dr Victor Osiatuma, highlighted some of the
achievements of the hospital, including the improvement from a 30-bed facility
at inception to 274 beds.
He also said the hospital has achieved
remarkable improvement by the Residency Training programme which it commenced
in 2010 with the accreditation of the Family Medicine department.
On challenges facing the FMC, Osiatuma pointed
out that the incessant strike actions in the FMC was hampering efficient
service delivery, and called for government action plan to address the
challenge.
“These incessant strike actions have not
helped the image of the health sector and patient attendance in the hospitals.
Many of the agitations of the health sector are already in the public domain.
“It is our view that government should quickly
come out with definite guidelines/measures, even if temporary, which will be of
uniform application to all the hospitals in the country,” Osiatuma said.
The high point of the tour was the inauguration
of the newly-built Accident and Emergency department and the newly-renovated
Utility block, which accommodates the Physiotherapy department.
* Source: The news Guru
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