Senate on Tuesday said it is worried over the poor health care system and inadequate maintenance of government owned hospitals in the country, Leadership reports.
To improve the worsening healthcare condition, the senate has mandated the federal government through Ministries of Finance and Budget to prioritize the sector and quickly release the N308, 464,276.782 budgetary allocations to the nation’s health sector in the current fiscal year.
Among other resolutions, the lawmakers charged the Ministry of Health to ensure efficiency in health care services, and maintain high standard of health care delivery services within the country through periodic training, hospital inspections.
It further mandated the Senate Committee on Health to investigate, probe, or request the audit of federal government owned hospitals; and also charged all federal government owned hospitals to provide quality management through continuous evaluations.
The demand of the Senate followed adoption of a motion by Senator Monsurat Sunmonu (APC Oyo Central).
Tagged “Inadequate maintenance of Federal Government Owned Hospitals” Senator Sunmonu argued that hospitals are health care institutions designed to provide patients with adequate, timely, and specialized medical attention and should not be handled with neglect.
This, she noted can save the lives of those who are in need of medical care, and that it is the first step in ensuring that the health care sector attains the desired standard in boosting the faith of Nigerians in nation’s hospitals.
While pointing out that renovations or even constructions are baseless if hospitals are not equipped with basic facilities required to save lives, she declared that the state of the country’s health care system was in dire need of attention.
Senator Sunmonu therefore affirmed that “in order to improve the future of medicine and health care system in Nigeria, improving the medical and clinical training system for post-graduate students to enable them acquire various specialist qualifications is of utmost importance.
“Despite Nigeria’s strategic position in Africa, the country is greatly under-served in the health care sphere and the health care sector has suffered several downfalls, particularly due to inadequate health facilities (health centers, personnel, and medical equipment) as well as incessant strike actions,”she stated.
Conversely, Senator Ali Wakili (Bauchi South) advocated that government should institutionalize a policy of having functional primary health centre in each ward across every state so as to reverse the poor health indices in the country.
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