Use Villa clinic, Senator advises Buhari against medical trips

• PS says approved N1.3bn too meagre for the clinic

President Muhammadu Buhari will have to stop travelling abroad for medical treatment and use the State House Clinic within the Presidential Villa in Abuja to raise the standard of facility at the hospital, a Kaduna senator, Danjuma La’ah, has said.

He told State House officials in Abuja on Thursday to convince the President to stop his foreign trips for medical treatment, adding that this would make the State House Clinic to become more effective.

The senator gave the advice when the State House Permanent Secretary, Tijani Umar, appeared before the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Intergovernmental Affairs to defend the 2021 State House budget.

Umar had presented the 2021 budget estimate of N19.7bn, which has N1.3bn allocated to the State House Clinic.

La’ah said stopping the President and other presidential officials from travelling abroad for medical treatment would help ensure that the clinic become more functional.

He said the committee would approve the budget for the State House Clinic but insisted that Buhari and other officials should stop travelling abroad for medical treatment.

“Our president is not a man to be taken out anytime or anything that happens to him on sickness matter. He must attend our clinic here and we must make sure that we equip our hospital to the best of our ability so that any emergency will be first taken care of here before flying out if the need arises.

“It is already approved;, N1.3bn for State House Clinic. I want this thing done and I want the credit to go to the whole committee – leave a legacy for the State House that the clinic we requested was done within the shortest time.”

He said two years would be given to the State House for completion of the clinic, adding that oversight function would be done monthly.

Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary of the State House, Tijani Umar, has said the N1.3bn approved for the Villa clinic was too small.

He spoke in an interview with journalists after defending 2021 budget estimate before the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Intergovernmental Affairs State.
He said, “The N1.3bn is absolutely inadequate when you juxtapose the amount proposed, the labour, and the status of the principals that the project is going to serve. When compared with worldwide standards, you’ll see that it is not anything near what we need.
“It (the clinic), is considered a legacy project for us because we want to leave something down. We have realigned some many things and one of the fundamental challenges we have dealt with is the sustainable supply of drugs and consumables.”