Secret Reporters No place to hide
Fejiro Oliver
Except more pressures are mounted by the residents of Ekiti State, they may have to bid goodbye to two departments in the State owned hospital, Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH).
The departments which documents was made exclusively available to Elombah.com reveals that the State governor, Kayode Fayemi has concluded plan with a South African company based in 14 Fricker Road Illovo, Johannesburg, 2196 , South Africa to let go are the Medical Laboratory and Radiology services, under a partnership that will see the foreign company, IFC manage it.
Despite the continuous denial of the governor that such is not in the pipeline, we laid hold of an email exchange between the State government middle-man, Mr Olusegun Daniel Ologunleko, who is also a Special Adviser to the governor. On Feb 4, 2014 at exactly 12:37 PM, with the title ‘Re- Final PPP agreement’, the governor replied his buyer “Dear Sirs/Ma,
I will like to thank all our team for the sustained effort to meet our agreed date of today with the IFC to publish the RFP documents. Please find attached the final PPP Concession agreement with all the changes and comments effected and tracked up till today.
Kindly go through and ensure all your comments, amendments requests, expert opinions have been accommodated and clear.
Our consent and approval is awaited by IFC team to upload the document into the data room
Expecting your urgent and important feedback,
Kind regards,”
In the earlier message sent to the governor which he replied the above, the company buying over the hospital department wrote on Friday 3rd January, 2014 “Dear Segun:
Please see attached what is hopefully the final draft of the PPP Agreement.
The redline shows all of the changes we have made as a result of the issues described in the commentary table that we sent yesterday (so comments from 18th and 31stDecember, and today).
As with the RFP document please review and if you are happy with the document please give us the OK to load it into the data room.
Kind regards,
Peter Boeré
Industry Specialist – Health
PPP Advisory Services”
According to reliable sources within the government house, the governor is trying to douse the tension the hospital sale is generating, so as not to jeopardize his chances in the gubernatorial election this year. We gathered that once the election is over, the governor will sign the final agreement with his foreign partners to let go off the two important departments, as his Edo State counterpart, Adams Oshiomhole did by banning motorbikes after using the riders to win election.
More scrutiny of the documents revealed a shallow knowledge of the medical sector, as it erroneously conferred on the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) the exclusive right to determine who works in the Laboratory and radiology departments, as well as certifying those who will do their internship there. This negates the act that the Medical Laboratory Council of Nigeria and the radiography board are the only statutory body authorized to issue out license to graduates of such medical profession.
The lengthy documents revealed that the firm will be responsible for hiring of staff and determine their salaries. When contacted, our ever reliable sources from government squealed that once the take-over is done, all the medical workers working there will be asked to go, while new ones will be engaged. Those who survive the fall will have to re-negotiate their working terms, and start from the scratch, thus forfeiting all their grade levels in government.
Further investigation by us reveals that those behind the hatchet job are the directors in the State Ministry of health, the Pathologists and Radiologists in the state, who have had a protracted battle with the Medical Laboratory Scientist and Radiographer on who runs the laboratories. The drafting of the document which was done secretly never carried the state Medical Laboratory council and Radiography board along, but was filled with only pathologists and Radiologists, thus the clear omission of the council from vetting who gets license to work there, as observed in the document.
In an email exchange between the governor and this newspaper, which was replied through his Special Adviser, he stated that the information in the documents is false and untrue.
The sale of the departments will mean that the residents will have to pay through their nose to access these medical services, while the workers there will have to be retrenched for a cabal bent on holding the hospital hostage in allegiance to their profession.
I wonder why all these are happening in Nigeria.
the medical laboratory scientist and radiographers should have realized that it will be to their detriment fighting medical doctors who create and determine the survival of their profession this is just the beginning of their woes because by the time we are done with them such profession will no longer be in existence.