PUNCH NEWS
The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Health, Amos Magaji, has said that the legislative body is to push for the declaration of emergency in the health sector, to reposition it to meet the needs of Nigerians.
The National Assembly member, who said that resolving the problems in the nation’s health sector required a multi-pronged approach, assured that it would soon bounce back when the needful was done.
Magaji spoke at Federal Teaching Hospital Ido Ekiti on Wednesday when members of the committee, who were on oversight function of health facilities in the Southwest visited the institution.
FETHI Chief Medical Director, Prof. Adekunle Ajayi, who led the committee members on the inspection of facilities and projects in the hospital, listed the challenges of the health institution to include huge power costs, inadequate water supply, poor access roads, ecological challenges, uncertain manpower planning and need to upgrade the medical facility.
Facilities inspected by the House Committee members included the Isolation Ward, new Hispathology building; the new Accident and Emergency Ward, Assisted Reproductive Technology building, the 150-bedded building, Molecular Laboratory and Physiotherapy Building.
The lawmaker said that the yearly meagre budgetary provision for Health by the Federal Government was grossly inadequate to run the hospitals effectively and efficiently and could not serve the hospitals and patients in the country given its population.
“We have gone around many health institutions and the problems are the same, lack of equipment, the manpower is a problem, equipment is a problem, the infrastructure in health institutions is also massively inadequate and of course very critical, the issue of power is killing the health institutions,” he said…
