The Sun News On-line|Abuja Reports

Twice it was expected to have been completed and commissioned, twice, the arrangement failed. It was for this reason that that Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCT), has read a riot act to the contractors handling its General Hospital Complex, in Karu, a suburb of the city to either shape up or ship out. Secretary of Health, FCT, Dr. Danlami Arabs Rokoje who undertook an inspection tour of the project site was visibly not happy at the slow pace of work, though the contractors insisted that they would finish it for commissioning now billed for next April.

The project was initiated by the Malam Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai adminstration sometime in 2005. The N2.6 billion project is a 225 bed general hospital and was awarded to H and S International firm, with the hope that it would be ready for commissioning in August 2006. That was not to be. Another deadline was set and an arrangements began, this time to ensure the project was ready for commissioning with numerious others by President Olusegun Obasanjo as aprting gift. The efforts too failed. The third deadline has been set again.

However, it remains to be seen how the contractors would deliver, but whether or not the project would be completed is a matter of time. When Dr. Rokeje in companied of some secretariat top shots, it was evident that the contractors were, yet to be through with the new year celebrations, as they were just returning to sites. Representative of the contractor who was on hand to recieve the Health Secretariat team, Yaqub Suleiman admitted that works appeared slow, but by his calculations, there is nothing to worry about. Meanwhile the Health secreatry made him to understand the emphasis the present adminstration places on health matters, and would not tolerate disappointment from the contractors. Indications that the projected completion date may not be realisable emerged when the contractors infromed the FCTA officials that the firm awarded the supply of equipment for the hospital was already hitching to bring the medical supplies but the centre is not ready.

Therefore, the arrangement on ground is to improvise a store for the medical equipment supply firm, Vamed Engineering, to bring in some of the equipment and store it in the improvised room, pending when their rightful places would ready for installation. Observers have argued that storing the equipment bring corrosion, because there is a prescribed temprature under which medical equipments are kept. The resultant effect is that some of the equipment might have to be reactivated, a development experts claimed might place addition financial burden on the FCTA. The contractors dismissed this arguement in an interview with the Daily Sun, maintaining that the store the firm would be using for the storage would not affect their efficacy. According to him, the equipment are not a one time installation.

In an interraction with journalists, Rokoje explained that the FCTA was worried at the percentage of Nigerian population who go to seek medical attention abroad when some of these ailments could be tackled at home. To check this trend, he disclosed that Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar had approved the implementation committee for the proposed Abuja Health Village, which will be a one stop gap health centre.

According to him, the village will consist of various specialist unit, undertaking treatment of specialised disease which cost the elite fortunes to treat outside the country. He stated that the village will be run by private investors who will own the hospitals, all within the same premises.
The involment of government, he explained would in the area of provision of the land mass for the gangantuan project. “In the area of health, we don’t want to leave anything to chances, government has focused on general hospital and it is high time we give attention to specialist health care provision too. The present adminstration is working assidously towards this”, he pointed out.

The health secretary also hinted of the plan to revisit the concessioning of the Garki General Hospital own by the FCTA to a private firm to manage. He stated that the minister’s office had been inaundated with petition on the arrangement and the need for the administration to give a second look . The hospital was concessioned by the el-Rufai administration, but the development has generated mixed reaction when members of the public complained of the outrageous fees charged by the hospital management.