Governor suspends entire hospital staff, for abandoning patients to iNGO

Borno Governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum has suspended all paid staff, amongst them resident medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and lab technicians at the General Hospital in Ngala town.

The suspension came after Zulum’s unscheduled visit on Monday at 11 am proved that the entire staff, had despite receiving government salaries, abandoned the hospital to an International non-governmental Organization, fhi360, which was managing hundreds of patients, majority of them, IDPs and residents.

A statement issued by the spokesman of the governor, Malam Isa Gusau on Wednesday and forwarded to Solacebase, said Ngala town is the headquarter of Ngala local government area in the central part of Borno state. The border town is within an international land route into Cameroon, Chad, Sudan and Central Africa.

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‘’Liberated from Boko Haram’s control in 2015, Ngala is currently populated by thousands of returnees, many of whom are internally displaced persons (IDPs), forced to flee their villages and farmlands in the wake of attacks by Boko Haram. A good number of other residents are indigenes of the town,’’ said the statement.

The statement said Governor Zulum had in his usual style of paying surprise midnight and daytime visits to schools and hospitals, showed up at the General Hospital in Ngala, in order to find out the realities of healthcare delivery to citizens.

‘’The Governor was disappointed to find out that despite high turn out of patients, not one of the many government-paid staff, from doctors down to clerical staff, was at the hospital at 11 am.’’

‘’Zulum was in fact received on arrival, by a field coordinator of fhi360, the iNGO left in control of the hospital. ‘’

‘’Saddened by what he found on the ground, he ordered the suspension of all staff on the payroll of Borno Government.’’

“This is a General Hospital belonging to Borno State Government, unfortunately, there is no single state Government staff here to attend to all these patients, and we promptly pay all of them salaries. These humanitarian workers from the iNGO (fhi360) are supposed to complement the state Government staff but not to completely take over the Hospital. I am directing the Borno State Hospitals Management Board, if there is any staff on the payroll of this Hospital, to immediately suspend all the workers on the government payroll. I will be back to this hospital, hoping to see the opposite of what I saw today” Zulum said.