Relief may soon come the way of the not fewer than 10,000 under-five children in Bauchi State who are suffering from severe acute malnutrition due to RUTF stock out as the state government has promised to procure the commodity very soon.
The indication was given by the state governor, Sen Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir while interacting with journalists at the end of the 2 days 1st Health Summit held in Bauchi.
The governor who expressed sympathy for the SAM victims in the state said that “And just as good food is given to malnourished children, we will do our best to collaborate with the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF and other partners so that we can give this assistance to our own children”.
Bala Mohammed added that “but the issue of food, food is medicine and hunger has affected many people in Nigeria now not only in Bauchi State because of the bad government that was in power in the past. There is no food and no drugs, there’s even no potable water and we have to address all these issues”.
On the health plan of his administration for the people of the state, he said that “already, before we started, we took a long time looking at the capital inventory and all the gamut of needfuls that are to be put in place, but we needed this particular push and you have seen the takeaways that we have, the Federal Ministry of Health in terms of human capital that we don’t have”.
The governor added that “We have over 400 doctors in Azare, about 400 here at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital Bauchi, whereas the whole state has 50 (doctors)”.
ALSO READ: We will not condone any act of destruction, Ogun government warns
On the importance of the presence of Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire at the summit, he said that “What the Minister did that is very good is to say that this well efficient and trained doctors will now be unleashed on our various secondary hospitals so that we can cover the gaps”.
“And again, he has told us about the emergency services and because we have a General Hospital in Toro repositioned, General Hospital in the other corridor, Alkaleri, and of course Ningi, Azare and Darazo. We are in a better position to implement the federal government established a medical emergency system that will benefit travellers and other people”, the governor added.
Bala Mohammed then assured that “We have made a new order, we have done as a state in collaboration with stakeholders in the health sector especially the World Health Organisation and its Agencies and the Federal Ministry of Health which the Minister came and opened this summit”.
“Our major people in the health sector is not only in the provision of food, but it is in the lack of manpower that we lack in our hospitals and the ghost doctors who are not working in the sector and we employed health inspectors and environmental cleaners instead of us to employ nurses, midwives and doctors which we have a shortage of”, the governor further said.
Bala Mohammed also said that “We are raising nurses and midwives but we don’t employ them. And that was why we sat down and drew up a plan to see that we start employing these people (nurses and midwives), so we have to develop a plan to employ these people and then, these ghost workers should be removed. We have done a lot in Bauchi and in Azare where we cleaning these cities and we will continue doing that because that is preventive medicine”.
and then