Gombe 28 house officers to boost clinical services – Commissioner
Chima Azubuike, Gombe
No fewer than 28 doctors are set to benefit from an initial housemanship programme of Gombe State Government.
The Programme is an aftermath of Nigeria Medical and Dental Council approval for the training of house officers, this made government to build, furnish block of flats for the first set of beneficiaries.
According to Commissioner for Health, Dr. Habu Dahiru, the era where departments within the State Specialist Hospital had no medical personnel was long gone.
Dahiru noted that aside the 28 house officers, 30 others were inherited from the National Youth Service Corps but were post across cottage hospitals in the 11 local government areas of the state.
Dahiru said, “We were able to do attestation for 28 doctors, 22 are indigenous from Gombe State and they are now here they have reported to the Specialist Hospital to do their internship. It will impact positively and significantly because each departments will have a minimum of 5 additional doctors and they are going to work 24/7. The era of when you come into the ward and they say there is no doctor is gone.
“You will recall, Nigeria Medical and Dental Council has approved Gombe Specialist Hospital to be a centre of training for house officers this will be the first batch of doctors that will start the Housemanship, this programme has signalled the commencement and we have issued them with letters of their posting to the hospital and we have given them their accommodation.
“The accommodation includes; bed and beddings, fridge, gas cooker, air conditioner, and a common room that they will share this will make them comfortable.”
The Commissioner reiterated that the trainees would not be neglected to function without adequate supervision, stressing that they are to be tutored by consultants while working.
“The clinical specialities where they are going to do the training, Gombe State Specialist Hospital has consultants in the areas of obstetrics and gynecology, surgery medicine, paediatrics, and other related discipline where these interns will train so the manpower to train them and also there is visiting consultants from the Federal Teaching Hospital and those on sabbatical from other universities they will be at the Specialist to train these house officers.
“This is just the beginning we have started harvesting. Every year we are going to harvest a minimum of 25 doctors. As a matter of fact, they are already on our payroll while they were on school now we have upgraded them to doctors salary scale and immediately they return from NYSC, we will post them to different hospitals. Every year we are going to harvest this number or even more.
“At the moment, there are some shortage in some hospitals due to retire or attrition to other places as we train others some will come and others may go. At the moment we have about 30 from NYSC posted in some of our cottage hospitals but in the Specialist with 22 house officers, senior medical officers, and consultants there is rich number of health personnel and allied workers to provide service delivery,” Dahiru said.
While bemoaning the challenges of losing trainees to Federal inst and quest for greener pastures, he revealed that each house would have the opportunity to benefit from car loan and refresher courses.
He added, “The first is to upgrade them to the level and immediately on their return we harmonise their package.
“We have included car loan, training facility, quite a few of them that go are still our staff they are going for specialty and sub speciality, on their residency programmes and some of them are in Bauchi, Kano, Zaria.
“They come in between to continue because they are on sponsorship by the state government. So part of the package includes; Accommodation, Salaries, Residency after serving the bond.”
