Teaching hospitals, others seek inclusion in TETFUND Act

Tertiary health institutions have called for the amendment of TETFUND Act 2011 to accommodate funding of tertiary and teaching hospitals nationwide.

Speaking under the aegis of Committee of Chief Executives of Tertiary Health Institutions, they argued that “Nigerian universities, polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education have improved their infrastructure, training needs and research through TETFUND.

“Tertiary health institutions are also educational institutions and also require upliftment to better the health of the people.”

The coalition’s chairman, Dr. Thomas Agan, in a letter to the House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions, said: “It is possible that the formulators of the Act were not sufficiently informed at the time. It is, however, not late to address this pathetic situation. The Act should be amended to incorporate tertiary/teaching hospitals.

“Thus Section 7(1) sub-section 3 of the Act should read thus: ‘the distribution of the fund shall be in the ratio of 2:1:5:1 among universities, tertiary hospitals, polytechnics and colleges of education.”

He stressed that the teaching/tertiary hospitals could be called the “workshop” of the universities as over 80 per cent of all students graduating through any medical school of a university must have their training either at the teaching or tertiary hospital.
Agan, who is also the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), wondered why the proponent of

TETFUND did not consider it necessary to recognise tertiary institutions as “a teaching hospital all over the world is considered both as a tertiary health institution as well as a tertiary training institution. The activities intrinsic in a teaching hospital are obvious and can, therefore, be ascertained.”

He added: “I, therefore, with due respect believe that either the original advocates of this noble idea of TETFUND did not consult widely or must have been engulfed in ignorance of the mandates of a teaching/tertiary hospital.

“Tertiary health institutions have three core mandates which are health service delivery, training and research. Funding of tertiary institutions has always come from yearly appropriation given to the institutions as predetermined ‘envelopes’ by the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Health.”