The JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, in his remark at
the presentation of the equipment at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital
(UITH), said the board facilitated the delivery of medical equipment to
carefully selected health facilities across the six geopolitical zones of the
country.
He added that the intervention was to support the
government’s efforts aimed at addressing the huge medical infrastructure gap.
He said the COVID-19 pandemic provided the much-needed
impetus for countries around the globe to do the needful by breaking barriers
and tapping into available opportunities.
He explained that “for us in Nigeria, the pandemic served as
a wake-up call that opened our consciousness to the need for adequately
equipped public health institutions to complement our highly acknowledged
skilled force of medical personnel.
“It is in pursuit of this noble goal that JAMB, in its
wisdom, decided to enter into partnership with a grant agency in the United
States of America to equip 12 tertiary health institutions in Nigeria.
“This is premised on our fervent belief that we could
address the deficits in this particular sector of our nation if every segment of
the society contributes its quota, no matter how little, to confronting the
lack in the critical areas of our society such as health, food and education.”
He recalled that the partnership with Project-Commission on
Urgent Relief and Equipment (C.U.R.E) started in 2019 when a delegation from
the board travelled to the U.S. to explore the possibility of establishing
another foreign Prometric centre for its Unified Tertiary Matriculation
Examination (UTME) as is the case in about 10 other countries.
He noted that Project C.U.R.E supplied free medical
equipment to needy facilities across the globe and that all that is required of
the recipient, health facilities are to provide logistics to convey the
equipment from Project C.U.R.E warehouse to their locations anywhere in the
world.
He said, “JAMB, therefore, decided to key into this
opportunity as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility and to boost the capacity
of the health sector.
“The board quickly arranged a meeting with the donor agency
in the U.S. and made necessary arrangements. The encouraging report of the
delegation propelled JAMB to pursue the project.”
Oloyede said that JAMB paid a shipping cost of 247,500
dollars for a “door-to-door” port transportation of the equipment from the
Project C.U.R.E distribution centre to our port in Nigeria.
“The board also paid the port agents and local transportation
of about N25 million.”
He commended the Federal Government in its efforts to assist
the board in transportation costs and taking delivery of the medical equipment and
the approval to increase the grant to ₦750 million with effect from 2023.
Dr Emmanuel Ndukwe, the JAMB Chairman, commended the novel
ideas of Oloyede in facilitating the equipment to Nigerian tertiary hospitals.
He advised the beneficiary hospitals to make judicious use
of the equipment, while also commending Project C.U.R.E for the humanitarian
gesture.
The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of UITH, Prof. Yusuf
Dasilva, commended the board for donating the state of the art equipment.
He added that the equipment would go a long way to assist
the hospital to provide necessary services to the people.
Some of the selected hospitals to benefit from the equipment
include the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital in Borno, Federal Medical
Centre Azare in Bauchi State, Yusuf Maitama Sule University Teaching Hospital
in Kano State.
Some others are Federal Medical Centre, Gusau, Zamfara
State, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Kwara State, University of
Medical Sciences, Otukpo, Benue, and University of Nigeria Nsukka Teaching
Hospital, Nsukka.
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