By Just Like Her Daughter, Aisha Buhari Berates Aso Rock Clinic, Calls For Probe
This seem not a good time for the Permanent Secretary of Aso Rock has another member of the First Family has complained about the service delivery at the State House Clinic, despite its huge yearly budget.
Wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari earlier on Monday expressed her concerns on health care delivery in the country while at the stakeholders meeting on Reproductive, Maternal, New Born, Child, Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH and N) in Abuja.
Mrs Buhari attributed the poor state of health facility at the presidential villa to the reason President Muhammadu Buhari had to travel all the way to London to receive medical care. She stated that she would be realistic to say “the healthcare delivery system in Nigeria is very poor.”
Mrs Buhari’s reaction about the poor state of the clinic in the Presidential villa is coming barely weeks after her daughter, Zahra Buhari-Indimi made similar complaints about the lack of common hospital equipment, despite huge funds budgeted for the structure on yearly basis.
Also read: Despite N3bn Allocation, State House Clinic Lacks Paracetamol- Zahra Buhari Rants
She said, “I am happy that the MD of Aso Clinic is here. Dr Manir, I am happy that you are here. As you are aware for the past six months Nigeria was not stable because of my husband’s ill health. We thank God that he has fully recovered now. If somebody like Mr President can spend several months outside Nigeria, you wonder what will happen to a common man on the street in Nigeria.
“Few weeks ago I was sick as well; they advised me to take a first flight to London; I refused to go. I said I must be treated in Nigeria because there is a budget for an assigned clinic to take care of us. If the budget was N100 million, we need to know the way the budget is spent. And along the line I insisted; they called Aso clinic to find out if their X-ray machine was working, they said it was not working. They didn’t know that I was the person that was to be at that hospital at that very time.
“I had to go to a hospital that was established by foreigners in and out 100 per cent. What does that mean? I think it is high time for us to do the right thing.”
The Wife of the President noted that if something like that happened to her, there was no need to ask the Governors’ wives what the situation was in their States. She said Abuja was the highest seat of government and the incident was about the Presidential Villa.
Mrs Buhari acknowledged that Nigeria had very good health policies, the best in Africa.
“Yes of course we have (policies) but implementation is always the problem. So we need to change our mindset and do the right thing,” she said.
She stated that a lot of constructions were on-going at Aso Clinic while the hospital lacked basic medical equipment and tools.
“There are lots of constructions going on in that hospital but there is no single syringe there; what does that mean? Who will use the building? So we have to be good in reasoning; you are building and there is no equipment, no consumables in that hospital and the constructions are still going on,” she queried.
She expressed that as a result of the president’s absence on medical vacation, “a 40-year-old man who is still living in his father’s house created a state out of a state and that is a major setback to the country. I hope that such a thing will not be repeated,” she stated.
Mrs Buhari appreciated the wives of the governors and other stakeholders for attending the event as an attestation of the importance they attached to the issue of maternal and child health.
.At the event that was also attended by Mrs. Dolapo Osinbajo, the wife of the vice president, Mrs. Buhari later donated a floor of the three-storey building of the Future Assured Centre in Wuse Abuja to the Women for the purpose of the advocacy.
