FOR months, expensive equipment which are critical to healthcare delivery at the Federal Medical Center based in the Ekiti State town of Ido-Ekiti have remained at the entry point in
Lagos, trapped by the usual stultifying bureaucratic bottleneck in Nigeria.
This was revealed on Thursday by the now-outgoing Chief Medical Director of the Center, Dr. Ololade Ojo, who said the delay in releasing the equipment not only denies those in need of them the benefit of the equipment, but also renders the multi-million naira equipments useless.
Dr. Ojo, one of the best performing Federal Medical Center directors across the country, made her appeal for the quick release of the medical equipment to the federal ministry of health.
Ojo, an experienced Ukrain-trained medical practitioner and administrator, spoke at a press conference organized prelude to her forthcoming retirement from service, calling on the federal government to give its accent to a bill she had co-sponsored for enactment by the federal legislature.
The bill is, among other things, to make legal the existence of the Federal Medical Centers across Nigeria.
According to Dr. Ojo, the draft of the bill remains pending before the federal ministry of justice in Abuja. She co-sponsored the bill with other officials in federal health institutions across the country.
The medical director was in Lagos for the grand-finale of the 2012 Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Week where she commended the gradual improvement being recorded in maternal and child mortality in Nigeria.