… Says President, Vice, Families Bonafide Beneficiaries of Facility – – Perm Sec
Williams Anuku Abuja
In what appears to be a decision to reform the State House Clinic to deliver efficient services, the management on Thursday, announced that it is scaling down the number of persons authorised to access the facility.
The hospital which is located around Asokoro district in Abuja, was famous for rendering state of the art medical services as it hired the best personnel.
It was learnt that the management arrived at the decision to scale down because the facility was overstretched as it caters to the health needs of over 32,000 patients.
The authorities also said the dwindling resources leading to a lean budgetary allocation to the facility made the decision inevitable.
The Clinic was established to provide health care services to the President and his Vice, as well as their families and members of staff working in the Presidential Villa, but owing to political privileges patients not captured in the scheme also access the facility.
In his remarks at the opening of a two-day workshop on service improvement in the hospital, the Permanent Secretary, State House, Tijjani Umar said the old order was no longer sustainable.
According to him, the authorities were determined to eliminate those he described as “hangers-on” and extend services to only those who are officially entitled to access the health care facility .
Omar said a lot of water had passed under the bridge in the past hence the renewed zeal after a meeting of stakeholders to bring back the clinic to it’s original status of efficient service to those who are entitled to access the facility.
His words, “We are going to trim down the number of unentitled people. These set of people bring constraints to us, unnecessary issues, that’s all. If you have five children in your house, then your neighbour send like 20 every evening to come and eat in your house, your pot will not be enough to feed such number. That’s what we are saying.
“This will assist us to look at those areas requiring improvement, the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.”
Continuing, the Permanent Secretary said, “the Clinic used to be a yardstick for performance measurement in the medical enclave and pride of the highly trained and experienced personnel working there.
“However, over the recent years, it was observed that services rendered at the clinic to the privileged few, suffered noticeable decline to almost zero service delivery. This resulted to a mockery of the facility and loss of confidence by its customers on its ability to render effective service.
“In an effort to upturn this ugly trend and revive its past glory, the State House
Management reversed the Medical Centre profile granted the facility, to its original status of Clinic, in order to limit the number of patients it handles and also maintain the original purpose it was created for.
Earlier in her address, the Servicom National Coordinator, Mrs Nnennna Akajemeli said a survey conducted at the clinic identified a shortage of staff, especially Doctors, and frequent power outage among others were observed at the State House clinic.
This development, she said, seriously affects the waiting time in the delivery of service, adding that recurrent power failure affects sensitive machines that require constant power supply in the clinic.
Akajemeli said the two-day workshop was aimed at alleviating the shortfall in service delivery at the clinic.
Over the years, the fortunes of the Clinic had declined, despite huge budgetary provisions, the facility could not boast of basic medical supplies.
