President Muhammadu Buhari has directed that the State House
Medical Centre (SHMC) should revert to serving its original purpose,
according to Jalal Arabi, state house permanent secretary.
Arabi
said this on Monday when he appeared before the senate committee on
federal character and inter-governmental affairs during a 2019 budget
defence session in Abuja.
He said the facility was initially meant to serve only the first and second families as well as Aso Villa staff.
The
presidency official added that while the directive was a case of
‘‘cutting one’s coat according to your cloth”, it will also make the
medical centre functional.
“Without prejudice to what is currently
obtainable at SHMC, the intention to revert to a clinic is a
presidential directive,” he said.
“This is to make sure that the
facility is functional and serves the purpose for which it was
established, ab initio. It was initially meant to serve the first and
second families and those working within and around the Villa.
‘‘The
overstretching of facilities at the medical centre by patients is some
of the challenges the Centre have been going through. It wasn’t meant
for that purpose.
‘‘Nobody was charging anyone for any services
and relying on appropriation means we will depend on subvention when it
comes to run the Centre.
‘‘Whatever comes is what you utilise and
if the last patient comes in to take the last drugs based on the last
budgetary release, that is it and we have to wait till another release
is done.
“But this new development means that services will be
streamlined to a clinic that will serve those that it was meant to serve
when it was conceived.”
Arabi also said the centre had a total
budget of N1.03 billion in the 2018 budget, with N698 million as capital
expenditure and N331.7 million as overhead cost.
He said while the allocation for overhead cost was fully released, only N231.9 million was released for capital expenditure.
TheCable had reported that the clinic lacks basic medical equipment and drugs such as syringe, paracetamol, cotton wool.
Aisha, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, had also lamented the poor state of the facility.
The
house of representatives subsequently passed a resolution to set up a
committee which will probe how the N10.9 billion said to have been
released to the clinic from 2015 to 2017, was spent.
Source:- Thecableng
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