The State House Clinic has disclosed plans to scale down the number of persons authorised to access medical attention at its Asokoro facility located in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
The authorities on Thursday said the dwindling resources leading to a lean budgetary allocation to the facility has made the decision inevitable.
The Clinic which was established to provide health care services to the President and Vice President, as well as their families and members of staff working in the Presidential Villa, now caters for about 32,000 patients which the authorities say is not sustainable.
Speaking at the opening of a two-day workshop on service improvement in the hospital, the Permanent Secretary, State House, Tijjani Umar said the authorities were determined to eliminate those he described as “hangers-on” and extend services to only those who are officially entitled to access the health care facility .
Omar said a lot of water has passed under the bridge in the hence the renewed zeal after a meeting of stakeholders to bring back the clinic to its original status of efficient service to those who are entitled to access the facility.
The Permanent Secretary said, the Clinic used to be a yardstick for performance measurement in the medical sector and pride of the highly trained and experienced personnel working there.
However, over the recent years, it has been observed that services rendered at the clinic to the privileged few, suffered noticeable decline to almost zero service delivery. This resulted to a mockery of the facility and loss of confidence by its customers on its ability to render effective service.
Umar further said the authorities were also determined to address the frequent power outage which has been a major challenge to effective service provision by the hospital.
Earlier in her remark the Servicom National Coordinator, Mrs. Nnennna Akajemeli, said a survey conducted at the clinic identified shortage of staff, especially Doctors, and frequent power outage among others.
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This development, she said, seriously affects the waiting time in the delivery of services, adding that recurrent power failure affects sensitive machines that require constant power supply in the clinic.
Akajemeli said the two-day workshop is aimed at alleviating the shortfall in service delivery at the clinic.
Editor: Ena Agbanoma
