Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, left, being conducted round the PHC by the Commissioner of Health, Dr Aliyu Maigoro
By Akanji Alowolodu, Bauchi
Bauchi State Governor, Sen Bala Abdulkadri Mohammed has assured volunteers working in the State Primary Health Care centers in the state of his commitment to absolve them permanently as health workers saying that very soon the state government will free resources and employ them.
The Governor stated this at the Urban Maternity Health Care Center, Azare on Thursday in continuation of monitoring and Inspection of all ongoing projects tour across the state.
He said that upgrading of primary health care centers in the state is an intervention where the state government has given it’s counterpart funding to meet the health needs of the state, particularly women and children.
The Governor said that under the primary health care development agency, the state government is expending more than N 1 billion monthly, but many of the permanent health staff do not turn up for work and the real workers are the volunteers.
He added that, “I am very happy with the volunteers here because of the work you are doing,but where are the permanent workers? It is because of manipulations, we cannot get it right. So i urge you to continue to exercise patience, very soon we will ensure that you are fully employed”
The Governor added, “We are going to free resources and are going to employ those that will be employed and when we are not going to employ friends of political associates.We will put the plan that you are going to compete for the available vacancies” .
He added that, “Very soon, we want to normalize your salaries because we are eager to remove ghost workers as some people are innocently suffering.You can see under the deputy governor of the state, we are doing so much to make sure that i form a committee under him to ensure that within one month, all these issues of salaries for your workers are done”
He asked the Commissioner of Health to make an inventory of all the health workers that are volunteers, but noted that with the state government limited resources, the volunteers should ensure that go to school of nursing to give them an edge to secure employment.
Earlier in his address, the State Commissioner of Health, Dr Aliyu Mohammed Maigoro said that the Urban Maternity Center is one of the PHC per ward that the government promised to renovate across the 323 political wards in the state.
He, added that the Nigeria State Health Investment Project, (NSHIP) renovated 150 PHCs of the 323 wards in the state, EU-UNICEF renovated 107 PHCs, other donor partners renovated 10 PHCs while the state government has awarded the contract for the upgrading and construction of 15 PHCs in the state.
He further said that with the coming of the impact project by NSHIP, the remaining PHCs that are yet to be upgraded, will benefit from the project.
