We need general hospital’ – Karu community urges FCT Minister NAN-HG-2 Hospital Karu (FCT), Jan. 25, 2016 (NAN) The Karu community in Karu local government area of the FCT on Monday called on the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello, to provide them with a general hospital. Alhaji Suleiman Musa, the Sarkin Hausawa of Karu, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Musa recalled that a tertiary medical facility was initiated by former FCT minister Nasir El-Rufai for the community, but suffered neglect by his successors.

According to him, the structure put in place by El-Rufai was eventually handed over to an Indian firm under a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) arrangement. “However, the exorbitant services being offered by the Indians are beyond our means and as such most residents do not patronise the hospital.

If this project is actually designed for the benefit of poor Karu community, the APC change government should urgently address the situation,’’ urged the traditional ruler. Musa explained that the original design of the hospital was suppose to be superior to the facilities in Asokoro and Maitama districts because of “our densely populated area’’.

An investigation by NAN, however, revealed that the hospital, owned by the FCT Administration, was originally billed to provide general medical and healthcare services to the rural populace, but now offers only behavioural (Psychiatry) medicine services. Patients with psychiatry cases were seen being attended to base on the degree of their challenges.

NAN also gathered that the hospital charge N14,000 and N16,000, respectively, as admission and accommodation fees. Meanwhile, the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello, has directed for the immediate opening of Zuba Cottage Hospital for public use. The minister, on Jan. 13, ordered the management of the FCT Health and Human Services Secretariat to ensure immediate commencement of medical services to patients at the Zuba facility.

He wondered why the hospital, whose structures had since been completed, would remain unutilised while the people were yearning for such important services, especially with daily influx of people into Abuja. According to him, there is the need to give priority attention to the Zuba Cottage Hospital to make it operational and accessible to FCT residents.

It is waste of public funds to build such an important hospital in that kind of location that is highly populated and refuse to open it to provide medical services to the people,” Bello said. He said the facility was one of the few ways the FCT Administration could provide quality healthcare services in the FCT.

This is especially to those in the rural areas thereby reducing pressure on the existing healthcare facilities in the territory,’’ he said. Bello further directed that all Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) under construction must be completed and immediately opened to provide medical services. He insisted that the PHCs in the FCT must also be adequately staffed to provide efficient services that they were designed for.

If we are able to look at our overheads and some of the expenditures and be more prudent, a lot of these funds could be deployed to primary healthcare. “This is what will impact meaningfully on the people,” he added. He called for synergy among healthcare practitioners in the FCT in order to deliver quality services; saying that they must work for the general good of residents. (NAN)