By Stephen Adeleye
Lokoja, May 11, 2024
The members Federal House of Representatives Committee on Health, has visited the Federal Teaching Hospital Lokoja (FTHL) to evaluate both ongoing and completed projects at the hospital.
Speaking after inspecting some projects at FTH Lokoja, the Chairman, House Committee on Health, Rep. Amos Gwamna Magaji, who led the team, said the visit was part of their constitutional mandate to perform their oversight functions.
Magaji noted that the federal lawmakers were at the teaching hospital to evaluate both ongoing and completed government projects, as well as *interface* with the management to know their challenges.
He stressed that the objective was to ensure that high-quality work was carried out, with the ultimate goal of enhancing healthcare service delivery for the populace.
“I am here with my colleagues from the house representatives to exercise our constitutional mandate of over-sighting federal government health institutions.
“We are here to see and evaluate the ongoing and completed projects at the hospital and to see if the allocated and generated fund are utilise appropriately.
“We will also interact with the staff and management of the hospital to know their challenges and understand what is going on here, and to ensure that healthcare delivery is optimised.,” Magaji said.
Magaji emphasized the government’s determination to enhance the delivery of quality healthcare services to the citizenry nationwide.
At a roundtable discussion, the team urged the hospital management to furnish them the details regarding income generations and government approvals for expenditures.
In his remarks, the Chief Medical Director of FTH Lokoja, Dr Olatunde Alabi, commended the lawmakers for the visit, describing it as timely and highly appreciated.
The CMD solicited for the legislative support of the National Assembly to address some major challenges facing the hospital especially the manpower shortage, and improve budgetary allocation to the facility.
“We already have an idea of what we need and that is why we have taken them round, so they can help us in the next budgeting process to enable us complete some of the ongoing projects,” Alabi said.
In their various comments, the Representatives of various unions within the hospital, appealed to the federal government to intervene and address a myriad of challenges.
According to them, these include issues such as enrollment in the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), wage disparities, allowances, and the shortage of manpower especially the clinical staff, among others.
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