Recently Zamfara state house of assembly committee on finance and appropriation led by Hon. Shamsu Hassan Basko has threatened not to allocate a dime to the state school of nursing and midwifery as well as college of health science Tsafe for reasons of non-disclosure of how they are spending their internally generated revenue IGR.
We agree this is a serious challenge considering the huge economic crises facing the state, and we remembered vividly few weeks back we brought the Executive Director of school of nursing to our studio where he featured in one of our programme “Tirka-Tirka to discuss some of the challenges he is facing since his assumption of office including the financial crises.
He has clearly pointed at some critical issues of concern which every well-meaning citizens of Zamfara would feel so sad for the school and based on that members of the house committee on finance and appropriation in their wisdom after watching the interview decided to wage into the issues raised and make inquiries on the factual position of the matter.
But some like minds who are concerns about the challenges faced by the school called the attention of the Managing Editor of this medium and advise that such a position taken by the state house of assembly committee against the state school of nursing specifically may impact badly on its feature academic development.
One of them who is a member of Nursing Council the body that regulate the academic operation of the school said, “members of the state house of assembly should take note of the fact that the school is already lacking in so many things especially infrastructures as well as human resource and that the council has been waving so many things for the school considering the simple facts that it is the only school of nursing that the state has for now.
According to him, previous governments have failed to put the much-needed infrastructural facilities needed to upgrade the status of the school including lecture theaters, adequate classrooms, staff offices, re recreational facilities, as well as staff houses.
He added that the school is the only one that has failed to be upgraded to the status of “Collegial System” because government has failed to do what is needed and that has badly affects its performance in terms admitting enough and graduating enough number of students that would fit into the human resource capacity of the state.
These plus many other factors he narrated according to him are enough to call for the cancellation of the “accreditation license” of the school which would equally be sorrowful development for the state, and instead he advised that the state house of assembly shall not drag the school into unnecessary crises that would attract the anger of the Nursing Council of Nigeria and other interested partners to abandon the school to its fate.
OUR POSITION
The speaker should as a matter of urgency intervene by calling the attention of the Finance and Appropriation committee to step down any further thing that would drag the school of nursing in to another larger crises.
The house should not capitalize on the mistakes of the past to cause a bigger crisis that would lead to revocation of the accreditation license of the school, instead it shall together with the ministry of health take fresh measures that would ensure prudence and accountability in the manner the resources of the school are managed.
The Speaker should allocate more than that is proposed to the school in the 2022 appropriation estimate and if possible, liaise with the executive arm to provide special funds that would be used to provide massive infrastructural facilities for the school.
The house led by Speaker Magarya should facilitate the formation of a high-powered monitoring committee that would work with the government to make sure that the needed facilities including human resources are provided for the possible upgrade of the school to a full pledged college.
The Speaker should be much concern about the huge human resource for health gap that existed in the state which is presently put at 1/(45,000) nurse/midwifery and even with this challenge many of these nurses and midwiferies are unceremoniously exiting the service of the state due to poor paid system
The speaker should ensure that the state ministry for health has become more alive to its responsibility by ensuring effective monitoring of the activities of the school, including how the resources it is generating are spent henceforth.
The Speaker should also mandate the house standing committee on health in making sure that the issue of admission racketeering which the school is known for has been rationalized in such away that only capable and qualified persons are admitted to ensuring quality control.
It is our candid opinion that, the issue of investigating the activities of the past leaders of the school should be put aside considering the crises at hand and the state house of assembly should concentrate more in providing alternative measures that would revive the school in the overall interest of the health care system management of the state.
