Members of the Ogun State House of Assembly have tasked the management of the State Ministry of Health and Hospitals Management Board to continue to encourage their personnel to render quality health and qualitative care services to the people, in order to accomplish qualitative and qualitative affordable health programmes of the State government.
The State lawmakers led by the Chairman, House Committee on Health, Hon. Wahab Haruna made this known during the third quarter of the 2023 budget performance appraisal of Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government in the State held at the Assembly Complex, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.
Hon. Haruna stated that though, the Assembly was conscious of the constraints facing the sector, there was a need to give their best to continue to render health services and life-saving care to patients in their various facilities across the State.
Contributing, Hon. Oludaisi Elemide counselled the Management of hospitals and health institutions to always ensure prompt replacement of personnel, who exited their facilities to reduce the workload on the existing manpower, saying such could be done through immediate request to the relevant authorities.
Earlier in his presentation, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr Kayode Oladeinde said the Ministry had expended over N1.04bn between January and September 2023 on its recurrent expenditure.
A further breakdown indicated that out of the above, a total of N999.4m was expended on salaries and allowances, while over N49m was spent on other maintenance and overhead.
He assured that the Ministry would continue to monitor and inspect private health facilities to eradicate quackery in the private health sector of the State.
On her part, the Permanent Secretary in the State Hospitals Management Board, Dr. (Mrs.) Yinka Elemide stated that over N2.1bn was expended on salaries and allowances, just as N22.9m was paid as overhead cost for the period.
Other agencies that had their budgets appraised by the State lawmakers included Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, State Hospitals, Office of the Auditor General for the State, the Ministry of Community Development and Cooperatives, as well as its Youth and Sports counterpart amongst others.