Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has eased the office accommodation challenges of the Health Management Board by directing that they occupy an additional building block.
He also allocated a new pick-up van to them with the promise that additional ones would be added when the economy improved.
Governor Ortom gave the directives this evening when he visited the premises of the board along Makurdi-Otukpo road.
He apologized to the staff for what he described as the harsh environment under which they had worked over the years and directed that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development should renovate their present block of offices and the neighboring one to ease office accommodation.
The Governor announced that in view of the sensitive nature of the health sector he had approved the recruitment of additional staff and resolved the salary challenge of those that had been employed but not paid for years.
Earlier, Board chairman, Mr. Jerome Tor-Shimbe who conducted the Governor around the premises commended his intervention in the health sector.
“In the health sector alone, we are proud to say that you have within less than a year written your name in gold for the renovation of School of Nursing and Midwifery and repositioned it ready for accreditation,” he stated.
“Through your prompt intervention, the graduation of medical students at the Benue State University that was hitherto a nightmare became feasible, you speedily granted approval for relativity allowances and skipping to serving medical doctors in the state.”
According Mr. Tor-Shimbe, “this has placed Benue State as the first state in the country to approve and pay same,” even as the Governor “magnanimously granted approval for replacement of 168 staff members that left service.”
He listed office accommodation, lack of vehicles, acute shortage of staff, disposal of expired drugs as well as the non-introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme in the state as challenges of the board.