Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State, on Wednesday suspended the entire staff of the general hospital located in Ngala, a town in the state.
The staff comprising resident doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and lab technicians, were suspended for abandoning the hospital to humanitarian workers of an international non-governmental organisation (NGO).
The governor had reportedly paid an unscheduled visit to the hospital on Monday morning, only to find the entire staff under the government payroll absent.
They were said to have left the hospital to humanitarian workers to manage hundreds of patients at the facility, including internally-displaced persons (IDPs).
On arrival, the governor was received by a field coordinator of the NGO.
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The governor was said to have expressed his disappointment finding out that despite high turnout of patients, no government paid staff, from doctors down to clerical staff, was at the hospital as at 11am.
“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.”
