By Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
JALINGO – The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Federal University Wukari Teaching Hospital FUWTH Professor Daniel Egah on Tuesday commended the Taraba State Governor Dr Agbu Kefas and other stakeholders in the State for enabling the smooth takeoff of the Hospital while he is still awaiting the grant from the FG.
Egah, who made the commendation in a chat with journalists said that of the Seven Hospitals that were approved by the Federal Government the same time, the FUWTH is the only one that is yet to receive take off grant and save fro the intervention and goodwill of other stakeholders in the State,
The Professor of Clinical Microbiology said that he came in with a vision to make the teaching Hospital an excellent health facility that will drastically discourage foreign medical tourism, provide a training ground and scheme that will check the massive migration of homegrown medical Doctors to oversee, and a research facility that will ensure ground breaking researches that will address perculiar health challenges in the country.
He however said that the delay in release of takeoff grant from the FG is stalling the directional progress of the hospital and urged the FG to expedite actions on the release of the funds.
“I must commend the State Governor Dr Agbu Kefas for showing so much interest in this project. He has been of tremendous help right from the onset and has not relented even as we speak. As we speak, we are yet to receive take off grant from the Federal Government. That means we would have been at a point where nothing would be happening practically.
“So when we came on board, I engaged with him and other stakeholders. He gave us ₦50Mn and that is the money we used to put things in place to give us the form of a Teaching Hospital. He has also agreed to and continued the payment of the staff we inherited from the General Hospital, even after the expiration of the Six months that was agreed upon in the initial memo that was entered.
“We also had the issue of mobility. When he got to know about it, he gave us a brand new Hilux van that has made movement relatively easier.
“There is so much we need to do at this initial stage to set the pace but all these depends on the what we get from the Federal Government. Even now, you can see that the place is already wearing a new look all together. We intend collaborating with the primary and secondary health care facilities in the State to avoid a situation the facility will be overwhelmed.
“Currently, we are making arrangements for about 20 Specialists in various fields to come over from Jos. This is very important for us. The problem is that we need to secure their accommodation and that will require about ₦21Mn. We also have a number of things that needs to be sorted out but they are all delayed because of delay from the FG”.
