By Samson Ezea
One thing that is very clear, undoubted, and unquestionable about Governor Peter Ndubuisi Mbah’s administration is its multisectoral, integrated, and holistic approach to governance. This is in evidence. To Governor Mbah, there is no dull moment, and no sector of the state economy is being left unattended, inactive, or dormant. That is why he appears to be in a hurry to revolutionize, re-engineer, and reposition every sector of the state economy with the same pace, vigour, attention, focus, and commitment.
With a whopping N21.7bn budgetary allocation to the health sector in the 2024 budget tagged “Budget of Disruptive Economic Growth,” one needs no prophet or prophecy to know that Governor Mbah came prepared to revolutionize the health sector in the state for the benefit of all.
Also, believing strongly in the axiom that health is wealth and that there is no way health can be truly wealth or for the sector to function or operate optimally without enough manpower, Governor Mbah has so far employed 100 resident doctors, consultants, and other support staff to address manpower shortage in the sector.
Apart from this, his administration has promoted health workers, upgraded health facilities, improved security and surveillance architecture in and around the state teaching hospital, supported the training of resident doctors and medical students, introduced the cashless payment policy to plug financial leakages, and digitalized patient care through an electronic medical records system and others.
Proving the bookmakers and cynics wrong and against the naysayers and opposition Labour Party members from Enugu North Senatorial zone’s falsehood and propaganda before the elections that the Enugu State University of Medical and Applied Sciences (SUMAS) Igbo-Eno, established by Governor Mbah’s predecessor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, would be shut down and relocated by Governor Mbah to get at the people of the zone for not voting for him massively in the election, Governor Mbah on March 26, 2024, signed into law the Enugu State University of Medical and Applied Sciences (SUMAS) Bill 2024 and has continued to work speedily and expeditiously for the urgent and early completion and equipping of the SUMAS teaching hospital to ensure it provides quality healthcare delivery to the people of Enugu North Senatorial zone and the state in general.
Not done yet, Mbah’s administration is presently constructing new Type 2 healthcare centres in 260 electoral wards in the state. Also being built by Governor Mbah are 30 primary healthcare centres and doctors and nurses’ residential quarters with power supply and alternative power supply to curb absenteeism and truancy among the health workers, especially in rural areas.
Again, and just recently, there was another cheering news from the Executive Secretary, Enugu State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (ENSPHDA), Dr. Ifeyinwa Ani-Osheku, that the Mbah’s administration will embark on the construction of an additional 100 primary healthcare centres across the state with a wide-reaching and quality-oriented state health insurance scheme through the PHCs where residents will pay N12,000 a year to participate in the community health insurance scheme.
Also already approved by Mbah’s administration was the employment of 450 clinical and non-clinical staff that will man the facilities after completion. On what will happen to the existing PHCs, Dr. Ani-Osheku said that they would be rehabilitated and equipped to operate side by side with the new ones.
Meanwhile, there is no doubt that when all these healthcare projects are completed and equipped with the required manpower and equipment, quality healthcare service delivery will be brought to the grassroots and doorstep of the people, especially the rural dwellers. Infant mortality rate and other health challenges that usually lead to the sudden demise of patients if not urgently attended to by medical personnel will be reduced and properly handled.
Not resting on his oars and knowing that the health sector is not only about facilities and structures without adequate and quality manpower, Governor Mbah recently broke a 19-year jinx in the health sector by securing the accreditation, indexing, and internship programme for the State Nursing Schools, which has been without it for almost two decades now.
Enugu State Nursing Schools that benefitted from this positive and unprecedented development are Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) Teaching Hospital, Parklane, Enugu’s School of Nursing, and College of Nursing Awgu, formerly School of Nursing, Awgu.
These approvals were announced by the Registrar of the Council, Dr. Faruk Umar Abubakar, when he led a delegation of the Council’s accreditation team on a courtesy visit to Governor Peter Mbah at the Government House, Enugu, recently where he equally commended the Mbah Administration for providing the requisite infrastructure at the Colleges of Nursing, Park Lane and Awgu to create a conducive environment for teaching and learning, while also paying attention to the welfare of health workers.
Dr. Abubakar announced the Council’s approval for the immediate recruitment of 50 interns to work at Park Lane, noting that with the approval of the internship programme, more graduate nurses would now be trained at the ESUT University Teaching Hospital to boost the state’s nursing manpower.
He equally lauded Governor Mbah for approving the implementation of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS), which is the latest salary structure for nurses, noting that with such show of commitment, the state would be able to retain a lot of its nursing manpower as they qualify.
With this development, Enugu State is targeting to be producing about 3,000 nurses annually. This number will be enough for engagement to man healthcare centres and facilities in the state and for hiring outside the state. It will completely address the patient-nurse ratio challenge, which has been a major problem in healthcare service delivery in Nigeria.
This great breakthrough will bring to an end the endless woe and trauma of the backlog of nursing students of the Nursing Department of Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, ESUT Parklane and College of Nursing Awgu, who have never been indexed and have not been writing professional examinations to qualify as nurses for almost 20 years.
What a great relief and remarkable achievement by Gov. Mbah’s administration! What a sigh of relief for both the stagnated nursing students, their parents, management of the teaching hospital, Enugu State Government, and the people of the state.
Finally, these giant strides of Gov. Mbah’s administration in the health sector will surely discourage and reduce medical tourism among residents and indigenes of the state, japa syndrome among the health workers in the state, and boost revenue for the state.
