25th December, 2015
Kazeem Ugbodaga
The Lagos State Government has decried the presence of some ‘bad eggs’ among public health workers in the state and vowed to discipline those caught tarnishing the image of the government through their unwholesome conduct in the discharge of their duties to the public.
Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris disclosed this at an interactive session with newsmen in Lagos, southwest Nigeria, saying that government was fully aware that there are some health workers tarnishing the image of the government through their unwholesome conduct.
“We have bad eggs among our health workers. It is not a good attitude the way they handle issues. We have investigated such issues before. This is a change period, something will have to change. We can’t be everywhere, but we are going to strengthen our monitoring team,” he said.
Idris added that the State Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency, HEFAMAA, has been mandated to visit two public hospitals per week in a bid to monitor the activities of health workers and inspect the facilities.
“We have people who are committing atrocities in our hospitals and we will deal with them. We will embark on aggressive monitoring and the fact is that we need to get a scape goat,” he said.
However, the commissioner reiterated the commitment of the present administration to move the health sector forward in order to ensure the wellbeing of Lagosians, explaining that things would henceforth be done differently to reflect the mantra of change of the government of the day.
Idris said that measures were being taken by the administration to ensure the realisation of this objective, stressing that the challenges in the health sector might seem insurmountable, but that the administration of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode was committed to solving the problems step by step and systematically.
The commissioner stated that the state would train and retrain its health workforce to empower them in order to deliver qualitative service to the teeming populace.
According to him, the administration has procured power generating sets, ambulances and portable x-ray machines for distribution to public hospitals, among other laudable achievements.
He also said that Ayinke House project which was abandoned by the former contractor has been re-awarded to another contractor that is ready to deliver the project in record time of 12 months contrary to speculation that the project has been abandoned.
Idris debunked the rumours that the state has also abandoned its plan to establish a medical park, but rather with modification of establishing it at the old Nursing School, Awolowo Road, Ikoyi in Lagos.
The commissioner said that a technical team was already studying the medical insurance scheme with a view to implementing it in public hospitals.