By Ijeoma Obioma.
The Benúe State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH) has employed a total of 400 new staff in order to boost its human resources for improved services.
Chief Medical Director of BSUTH, Stephen Hwande, made the disclosure during a press conference on Wednesday in Makurdi, the Benúe State capital.
Hwande said, “The job recruitment process was completed with a total of 400 staff injected into the service of the hospital. One of the first things we discovered when I came onboard was that the manpower, human resources to drive the hospital in key areas was not there.
“We needed to have neurosurgeons and now we have two neurosurgeons, we needed pediatric surgeons, plastic surgeons among others. Now, we have pediatric surgeons, plastic surgeons, dermatologists and in this recruitment process, we have been able to bring in opthalmologist, optometrists, dentals, including physiotherapist, radiologists and all cadre of staffs have been employed.
“They have just successfully operated a child with tongue tumors yesterday. In the past such cases were referred to Jos or Abuja.
“We employed about 140 nurses and over 60 doctors. So within the budget of the hospital, we have employed 400 staff into the Teaching Hospital by the Government of Benue state.”
He explained that the distribution of the employment was fairly even as staff were recruited from the three Senatorial zones of the state to ensure that every sector, tribe, religion were carried along adding that even non indigenes from Bauchi, Borno, Enugu among other states were also recruited on merit.
The CMD added that from the workforce, the state government would run the Muhammadu Buhari Mother and Child sector annex and carry out other functions intended for the facility just as he appreciated Governor Hyacinth Alia for approving the recruitment and fulfilling part of his campaign promises to take the youths off the streets and reduce unemployment.
“We have already recruited 25 women with infertility for In-vetro Fertilisation (IVF) services of the hospital. So the hospital’s first batch of IVF will be in April – May and 25 women have been recruited. We are going to run that at the Muhammadu Buhari annex and the Governor has directed that the services should be subsidized for these women in this first batch.
“Usually, IVF processes are very expensive and for us to start in in the public sector, in the whole country you may not find up to five teaching hospitals that are involved in IVF. So with this, the BSUTH will soon be put on the map of teaching hospitals that are involved in IVF,” Hwande posited.
