By AYINDE OLAIDE
BAUCHI- Students offering medical and health courses in Bauchi State will henceforth enjoy automatic employment after graduation in the state.
Gov. Bala Mohammed announced the scheme on Thursday in Bauchi while inaugurating two newly constructed primary healthcare centres in Gidan Dubu and Fadamamada communities in Bauchi metropolis.
He said that the two health facilities were constructed with development partners like the UNICEF, European Union (EU) and USAID.
“As a measure to maintain the major optimum requirements to the healthcare profession in the state, this administration has reintroduced the pre service scheme where students offering medical and health courses are given automatic employment.
“That is our health students, the midwives and the nurses that are in our tertiary institutions,” he said.
According to him, government placed a high premium on healthcare delivery as it believed in the saying that ‘health is wealth and a healthy society is a productive society’.”
He said for this reason, his administration had been trying to address the challenges of the health sector, especially in the areas of service delivery, infrastructure and human resource development.
“Consequently, since the inception of this administration, we have been able to construct four general hospitals where there were none as well as 15 primary healthcare centres.
“We have also renovated and equipped 10 secondary and 10 primary health facilities across the state.
“These are in addition to the 107 and 204 primary and secondary health facilities, renovated and upgraded through the support of EU, UNICEF and NSHIP projects respectively,” he said.
Mohammed assured the people of the state that all developmental projects started by this administration would be completed within the remaining life span of his administration.
Also, the Bauchi state Commissioner for Health, Mr Sabiu Gwalabe, lauded the governor for the high priority given to the health sector in the state.
He added that within the past three years of the present administration, laudable projects and programmes had been initiated and accomplished.
The commissioner called on the benefiting communities to appreciate the present government for making their decade long dreams a reality.
Mr Oluseyi Olusehinde, Health Specialist from UNICEF, said that the organization had been enjoying partnership with the Bauchi State Government.
He said “in addition to the contribution you are making yearly to this PHC MoU, we are glad to say that every year, you are adding new structures, new primary health care centres to the number of primary healthcare centres in Bauchi State.
“We are also grateful to say that by the beginning of your administration, there were some wards in Bauchi without PHC centres but as at now, we are glad to say that you have covered all those wards.
The state government, on Nov. 17, allocated N30.5 billion to the state Ministry of Health out of the N202 billion 2023 budget presented by the governor to the state House of Assembly for approval. (NAN)
