MEMBERS of the public especially residents of Edo State have frowned at recent issuance of letter of appointment as MD allegedly to Professor Alexander Ogbemudia by Dr.Osagie Ehanire few days after Dr. Philip Ibukun Ugbodaga was issued letter of appointment as Acting MD by Hon. Ekumanama Joseph Nkama, the Minister of State for Health.
A source at the Federal Ministry of Health, who pleaded anonymity stated that the messy intrigues coming less than a week to the exit of both Ministers was unfortunate.
He stated that ordinarily the Minister of State for Health is in charge of the supervision of Specialist Hospitals and Federal Medical Centres like Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital Benin, while the Minister of Health is in charge of the big Teaching Hospitals like UBTH and ISTH Irrua in Edo State.
Information as to where the hospital will be located is scanty.
However Edo state already has three Federal Tertiary Health Institutions two cited in Edo South (UBTH and Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital Benin) and one in Edo Central (ISTH),the location of the new National Orthopedic Hospital appears to be a mystery.
The outgoing Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Emmanuel Ehanire was embroiled in a similar controversy recently, when he was accused in the Front page of The Point Newspaper of Wednesday March 29,2023 of nepotism and undue interference in the appointment of a substantive MD for the National Hospital Abuja by the Governing Board of the Hospital.
It is strange that it is at the tail end of an eight year tenure as Minister in the Ministry of Health that the outgoing Minister of health wants to impose someone from his geopolitical zone as MD in the fourth Tertiary Health Institution in Edo State.
No Edo North indigene, has ever been MD of any of the Federal Tertiary Health institution in Edo State and a lot of respondents feel the Minister of State for Health was right in his choice of a competent Edo North Indigene as Acting MD of the newly established National Orthopedic Hospital Edo State.
The Edo State Chapter of the ruling APC recently thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for appointing Dr. Ugbodaga as Acting MD of the National Orthopedic Hospital Edo State.
Members of the public are pleading with the Incoming President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to wade into the matter with the aim of addressing the ambiguity in the appointment of a Medical Director for National Orthopaedic Hospital Edo.
