Zulum suspends entire hospital staff for abandoning duty

Babagana Zulum, governor of Borno, has suspended the entire staff of the general hospital in Ngala, a town in the state.

The staff on suspension include resident medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and lab technicians.

The governor was said to have paid an unscheduled visit to the hospital on Monday morning, but the entire staff under the government payroll were absent.

They were reported to have abandoned the hospital to humanitarian workers of an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) managing hundreds of patients at the facility, including internally-displaced persons (IDPs).

On arrival, the governor was received by a field coordinator of the NGO.

The governor expressed his disappointment finding out that despite high turnout of patients, no government paid staff, from doctors down to clerical staff, was at the hospital at 11am.

“This is a General Hospital belonging to Borno state government. Unfortunately, there is no single state government staff here to attend to all these patients, and we promptly pay all of them salaries,” Zulum said.

“These humanitarian workers from the iNGO (fhi360) are supposed to complement the state Government staff but not to completely take over the Hospital.

“I am directing the Borno State Hospitals Management Board, if there is any staff on the payroll of this Hospital, to immediately suspend all the workers on government payroll. I will be back to this hospital, hoping to see the opposite of what I saw today.”

In 2019, Zulum paid an unscheduled visit to a hospital in Maiduguri, the state capital, around 1 am and did not meet any doctor on duty. The governor later suspended the absentee doctors.

In February, the governor visited a school at 6:30 am and met only one teacher on duty. He asked that the teacher be promoted for her dedication to work.