DR Ita Edim, Medical Director, General Hospital Rubouchi, Kuje, FCT, has called on villagers to patronise government health facilities for their health benefits.
He also urged rural communities to stop their preference to be treated locally by traditional healers and spiritualists to avoid further complications and death.
Edim made the appeal while receiving Malam Adamu Bappah, the Secretary, Health and Human Services Secretariat (HHSS), who is visiting three hospitals of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) on Wednesday in Abuja.
He said that the hospital was trying in terms of outreaches to the villagers, adding that they have improved and are gradually picking up.
The medical director also said that the 45-bed hospital was faced with electricity challenges, adding that the hospital has depended mainly on generator for over two years now.
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He, however, thanked the FCTA for being supportive and called for more assistance, especially in the area of power supply.
“We are working on changing it now. It has improved. You can see patients in the wards; before we will not have them here.
“We are doing outreaches to them and they are listening to us.
“We have not had electricity from the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) here for the past two years and we have been depending on generators since then,’’ he said.
The Medical Director of Abaji General Hospital, Dr Kezaya Donatus, decried the slow work on Emergency and Accident (A and E) unit, which was yet to be completed.
According to him, this is not a befitting situation for a government hospital.
Donatus said: “We are short staffed and we have the problem of erratic payment of contract staff; sometimes we are forced to source for money to pay them.
“We need funding for our free antenatal services; we need money to sustain the free medicals for patients.
“’Sometimes I support the people in the community by offsetting their hospital bills.
“The issue of electricity and water should not be taken lightly. In terms of security, we are just in the hands of God because we have armed robbers around all the time,” he said.
On her part, the Medical Director of Kwali General Hospital, Dr Halima Bello, thanked the secretary for the visit, noting that it will boost the morale of staff.
Bello said that the visit would provide opportunities to review operations and services in the hospital.
She also called for more staffing and funding.
Bappah had earlier said that the purpose of the visit was to familiarise with the challenges and problems of the hospitals so as to intimate the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello.
He called on the medical personnel of the hospitals to maintain good relationships with indigenes to encourage them to patronise the facilities for quality healthcare.
He also appealed to all the traditional rulers of the villages that were visited to encourage their people to patronise public hospitals.
The Chief of Rubouchi, Mr Ibrahim Pada, assured that the institution would go on a sensitisation drive to villages and point out the importance of government hospitals to the villagers in the communities.
However, Pada appealed to the government to look into the issue of admissions into the Gwagwalada Nursing School and employment for indigenes to also benefit from the gesture.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Bappah also visited the Chief of Gwargwada, Alhaji Hussaini Agabi, and Chief of Kwali, Mr Shaban Nizazo, all within the FCT accordingly.
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