Non functional health equipment, Benue Assembly summons Ortom’s Health Commissioner, Perm. Sec, others
By Titus Atondu, Makurdi
The Benue State House of Assembly has ordered the appearance of the immediate past Commissioner for Health and Human Services Benue State, Professor Joseph Ngbea to appear before the Assembly Committee on Health and Human Services to explain why the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Dialysis machines acquired for Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH) we’re not functioning since they were installed.
Also to appear before the committee is the Permanent Secretary and Director of Procurement in the Ministry, immediate past Chief Medical Director of BSUTH, Professor Terrumun Swende and the Director of Administration at the hospital as well as the contractor that supplied the machines.
Ngbea served as Commissioner under the administration of the immediate past Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom.
The House Committee Chairman, Hon.. Thomas Dugeri revealed the summon to Journalists after inspecting facilities at the hospital, when he led other members on an oversight visit to the facility.
He questioned why the recently installed Magnetic Resonance Imaging and the Dialysis machines could not function for even a day after huge amounts of taxpayer money was used in purchasing them.
Dugeri commended the current management of BSUTH led by Dr. Stephen Hwande for the steps he has taken so far to repositioning the hospital and assured that the committee and the Assembly would always support him as well as look into the law establishing the hospital with a view to making it more effective.
Earlier, the Chief Medical Director of BSUTH, Dr. Stephen Hwande pointed out that the MRI machine was the best diagnostic tool that, if working, would have solved more than 70 percent of medical cases in Benue State, thereby preventing people from going to Abuja, Lagos or other places for complex medical examinations.
Hwande explained that the two Dialysis machines supplied to the isolation unit of the hospital which are not functional were no longer safe for human use and appealed to the Assembly Committee on Health and Human Services to assist the hospital in ensuring that the company that supplied the machines was forced to comply with the terms of the contract to save lives.
