By PATRICK ABANG, Calabar –
As part of efforts to sanitize the Ministry of Health, The Cross River State Government has vowed to deal decisively with medical officers who leave their area of posting.
This was disclosed by the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Janet Ekpenyong during a Ministerial Briefing with journalists on Thursday in Calabar.
Dr. Ekpenyong said it was sad that medical officers posted to different Local Government Areas, (LGAs) and communities leave the facilities and communities in their care and return to Calabar.
She said: “This is painful because sometimes emergencies happen at night and you need a health worker to be around to respond to these emergencies.
“We are stepping up our surveillance and unscheduled visits to our Primary Healthcare Centres in communities in the state and anyone doing that will go in for it.
“Similarly, for those reported to be overcharging pregnant women who come for delivery, proper disciplinary actions will be taken against them as the state was trying to encourage women to use healthcare facilities during delivery,” she said.
Speaking further, Ekpenyong said the state’s Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) Calabar was undergoing renovations after it was attacked in 2020 by hoodlums during the EndSARS protest.
She said a lot of government facilities were hit but the case of IDH was worse because of the nature and cost of facilities vandalised there.
“IDH was badly hit because some of the facilities there were very expensive and were supported by the Federal Government.
“Right now, we are doing a lot of work in IDH but we still have the laboratory section and we are working with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to put it in order.
“This is because we expect to be carrying out some high level testing there which will help us in the prevention of some infections,” she maintained.
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