Minister cautions against new healthcare centres without funding

• Reps to investigate closure of NYSC camp in Maiduguri
Minister of State for Health, Adeleke Mamora, has cautioned against establishing new healthcare centres in the country, without proper funding.

Mamora gave the advice at a public hearing on five bills organsied by the House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions in Abuja, yesterday.

The bills were for an Act to establish Alex Ekwueme Federal Teaching Hospital Abakiliki, Ebonyi; for an Act to repeal the Federal School of Medical Laboratory Technology, Jos, Plateau; a bill to establish Federal Medical Centre Amagu Ikewo, Ebonyi; a bill to establish Federal College of Nursing, Midwife and Health Sciences Isiala-Mbano, Imo; and a bill to establish Federal Medical Centre Bonny, Rivers.

He said the ministry conducted an audit and discovered there were 30,000 primary healthcare centres in the country with less than one third being functional. “Even those that are functional are not fully functional, as the time the audit was conducted,” he said.

The minister said a number of the existing facilities were groaning under pains of inadequate funding.

“We feel very strongly in the ministry that this is where we need to focus our attention. We know that the first point of call for the bulk of people living in rural areas is the primary healthcare centres. Any bill that is presented is supposed to be accompanied by the financial compendium, which should give the outline of sustainable financial cost of implementation of the bill if it becomes a law.

“We need to emphasise that it is not just putting physical structure on ground that is the problem or putting equipment on ground because the hood does not make the monk. You also need the human resource for health, and that is the most critical.”

Also, the House of Representatives resolved to investigate alleged refusal of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to reopen its permanent orientation camp in Maiduguri, Borno.

The resolution was sequel to unanimous adoption of a motion by Usman Zannah (APC, Borno) at plenary, yesterday.

In his ruling, Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Wase, mandated the Committee on Youth Development to investigate the alleged refusal of NYSC to reopen the camp.

Meanwhile, a bill seeking to give legal backing to the Chartered Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering suffered setback as stakeholders rejected it.

This happened at a public hearing organised by Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service chaired by Ibrahim Shekarau.