Borno Governor, North East Nigeria, Babagana Umara Zulum has directed the State Health Management Board to automate its revenue system to enhance sanity.
The Governor who gave the order Wednesday during an inspection visit to the state specialist Hospital, Maiduguri , noted that, there are alot of leakages in the administration of revenue in the state, which informed his visit .
“Our aim is to break the pattern of underperforming revenue in our healthcare services” Zulum noted.
During his one hour visit, Zulum requested all records of revenues accrued to the Hospital, where he personally scrutinised receipts, record books and details of the Hospitals account.
Governor Zulum undertook an assessment of revenue generating units, that include: Laboratory, ENT, Radiography and pharmacy units.
Zulum also tasked the Hospital Management Board (HMB) to leverage technology to improve their performance and accountability.
“To improve revenues, Hospitals must consider various strategies and leverage new technologies. Therefore, I’m giving you two weeks, the system now has to be automated. Look at our Pharmacy for example, we have available market but people are going outside to purchase drugs, it means something is wrong somewhere.” Zulum Said.
“I am here to give a desired leadership, we have to ensure probity, we have to ensure accountability. I want to see an improvement of the situation, from tomorrow I want to see the statistics of revenue collected every month.” Zulum warned.
“When I was in Ramat Polytechnic, I established a laboratory. There was a time I received 5 million as a revenue in one month. I will not tolerate a situation where General Hospital cannot pay its security operatives. Government buys reagents and other materials, we have to take deliberate and drastic measures to ensure sanity in our revenue system. I wouldn’t mind injecting one billion naira to this Hospital, but there has to be sanity in the system.”Zulum Lamented.
In another development, Governor Babagana Umara has suspended 9 Hospital attendants for absenteeism. The nine of them were absent and their offices locked, when Governor Zulum visited MRI/Scan section of Radiography.
“People reported as early as 6:00 am, nobody is here to attend to them. This will not be allowed to continue. I hereby suspended all of them for this gross negligence.” Zulum Said.
“Write down the names of those absentees, those that are on the pay roll but are not willing to work. Give me their details today, if they are not willing to work, we can replace them with serious people.” Zulum stated.
Furthermore, Governor Babagana Umara inspected Buba Marwa Doctors Quarters, an edifice built thirty years ago. He assured of prompt Government attention to rehabilitate the building.
