Healthcare: Government suspends all hospital personnel for negligence

Emmanuel Akosile | ConsumerConnect

Amid the continued efforts by the appropriate authorities and Nigerians to contain further spread of the fatal novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the country, Prof. Babagana Zulum, Governor of Borno State, has suspended all salaried staff members at the State General Hospital, in Ngala, Borno State.

Among the suspended hospital officials are resident medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists and lab technicians, according to Daily Trust.

Report indicated that prior to his wielding a big stick on the errant personnel, Prof. Zulum, on an unscheduled visit to the hospital at 11 a.m. Monday, June 1 had arrived at the hospital and discovered that the entire staff had abandoned the health facility.

They reportedly abandoned their duties to an international non-governmental organisation, fhi360 to manage hundreds of patients, the majority of whom are Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and residents of the state.

The hospital’s staff literally abandoned duties despite receiving the state government’s salaries as and when due, stated the report.

The governor was said to have visited the hospital so as to find out the realities of healthcare delivery to the citizens of the state.

On getting to the healthcare facility, report further said that Zulum was disappointed to discover that in spite of the huge turnout of patients seeking healthcare at the hospital, none of the government health workers was on duty at the hospital at 11a.m.

A field coordinator of fhi360 from the iNGO, which the workers left in the management of the hospital received Prof. Zulum on arrival at the hospital, report stated.

Not excited by the situation he found on the ground, the governor ordered the suspension of all staff on the payroll of the Borno State Government.

Zulum in a statement said: “These humanitarian workers from the iNGO (fhi360) are supposed to complement the State Government staff but not to completely take over the hospital.

“I am directing the Borno State Hospitals Management Board, if there is any staff on the payroll of this hospital, to immediately suspend all the workers on the government payroll.

“I will be back to this hospital, hoping to see the opposite of what I saw today (Monday).”

Ngala town is the headquarters of Ngala Local Government Area in central part of Borno State.

The border town is within an international land route into Cameroon, Chad, Sudan and Central Africa.

Liberated from Boko Haram’s control in 2015, Ngala is currently populated by thousands of returnees, many of whom are IDPs forced to flee their villages and farmlands in the wake of attacks by Boko Haram.

A good number of residents are indigenes of the town, the source revealed.

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