Borno Governor, Babagana Umara Zulum has suspended all paid staff, amongst them resident medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and lab technicians at the General Hospital in Ngala town.
According to a press statement by the state government, the suspension came after Zulum’s unscheduled visit on Monday June 1st proved that the entire staff, had abandoned the hospital to an International non-governmental Organization, fhi360, which was managing hundreds of patients, majority of them IDPs and residents.
Ngala town is the headquarter of Ngala local government area in central part of Borno state.
Liberated from Boko Haram’s control in 2015, Ngala is currently populated by thousands of returnees, many of whom are internally displaced persons (IDPs), forced to flee their villages and farmlands in the wake of attacks by boko haram. A good number of other residents are indigenes of the town.
Governor Zulum had showed up at the General Hospital in Ngala on an unscheduled visit and didn’t meet any of the doctors or clerical staff, at the hospital
Zulum was in fact received on arrival, by a field coordinator of fhi360, the iNGO left in control of the hospital.
The Governor immediately ordered the suspension of all staff on the payroll of Borno Government.
“This is a General Hospital belonging to Borno State Government, unfortunately there is no single state Government staff here to attend to all these patients, and we promptly pay all of them salaries. These humanitarian workers from the iNGO (fhi360) are supposed to complement the state Government staff but not to completely take over the Hospital.
I am directing the Borno State Hospitals Management Board, if there is any staff on the payroll of this Hospital, to immediately suspend all the workers on government payroll. I will be back to this hospital, hoping to see the opposite of what I saw today” Zulum said.