FG Denied Us Teaching Hospital, But We Are Ready to Get One, Says Masari

Ibrahim Shuaibu in Katsina

Katsina State Governor, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari, has expressed disgust over the refusal of the Federal Ministry of Health to allow the state government acquire and convert the Federal Medical Centre to serve as a Teaching Hospital for Umar Musa Yar’Adua University, saying that it has slowed down the dream of his administration to develop the health sector.

According to him, over 600 medical staff will soon be recruited to serve in the health facilities that are already being put in place in the state.

Masari further explained that his dream was to ensure that before the end of his first tenure, the state-owned University would have commenced a department of Medicine, with a befitting Teaching Hospital, adding, “In the page we are now, even the Federal Ministry of Health cannot stop us.”

Masari who spoke to a group of reporters over the weekend concerning his two-week business trip to China and India, however, revealed that his administration has commenced a programme that will at the end of the day, ensure that the state gets a deserving Teaching Hospital that will serve the state-owned university after several years of the State’s creation.

“You know, we are very much concerned about our Eye Centre; we want to develop this Eye Centre to a department so that it can click into our plan of developing the supposed Specialist Hospital into a full-fledged Teaching Hospital.

“Right now, we have commissioned our consultants to come out with clear reasons why we are developing a Teaching Hospital. We are doing this because we have a university called the Katsina state university. This is a university which has started preparations to do Medicine and you cannot do Medicine without a Teaching Hospital. “