Governor Bala’s revolutionary drive in the health sector: A giant stride to curb maternal and child mortality

By Keturah Babas

Apparently disturbed by the level of dilapidation in the health sector in the state, coupled with the rate of maternal mortality and morbidity inherited from the previous government, Governor Bala Mohammed did not waste time to start a radical change to suit the health yearnings of the people of Bauchi immediately after he took over the mantle in May 29 2019.

To achieve this, the Governor gave a lion share from the state budgetary allocation to the sector which has translated into a great boost in the area of infrastructures as well as creating avenue for the supply of infrastructures with adequate and qualified manpower to man it.

Indeed, Governor Bala Mohammed religiously believed in the popular saying, “health is wealth” and has since inception taken aggressive approach to ensuring health for all in the state.

One out of the numerous areas Governor Bala Mohammed paid and is still paying focus to, is the learning environment where these manpower will come from.

Baring her mind, the Provost of Bauchi state college of Nursing and Midwifery, Hajiya Rakiya Sale said Governor Bala Mohammed has within the shortest period of steering the mantle of leadership in the state provided the needed infrastructure and resources to revamping the institution.

According to her, established by the enable law of Bauchi in 2011, the college which came to effect in 2012, with the academic activities startin properly in 2017, has no doubt help greatly in bridging the gap of infrastructure and manpower the state health sector had sufferred in the past.

“The establishment of the college was aimed at training nurses and midwives in order to address the acute shortage of human resources for health in the state”. The provost said.

Hajiya Sale who stressed that the vision of the school is to train competent nurses and midwives that will play an outstanding role in the dynamic healthcare delivery system, added that the mission is also to be a leading health institution that commits to engaging staff and students in learning and research opportunities.

Sale while expressing gratitude to the present government of Bala Mohammed for working tirelessly to achieve that further explained that the college was established in order to produce nurses and midwives that can deliver quality healthcare services to the teaming people of the state.

“With that mission and vision in us, the college, with the intervention of His Execellency, Goveror Bala Mohammed Kauran Bauchi has made us moved on to start training these categories of healthcare providers”. She informed.

“Initially, the college was on probational accreditation in 2017 and there were a lot of things that were identified which the college need to have before we can be given full accreditation”, Hajiya Sale said.

She pointed out that, with the coming of this administration, with Senator Bala Mohammed as Governor and his ability to release close to N150 million to continue with the various projects in the institution, the projects were completed on time which gave us the opportunity to have the full accreditation of the college”.

The Provost enumerated the projects executed to include, the renovation of the larger complex library that cater for the two programs, that is nursing and Midwifery, renovation of male hostel, construction of students common room which was part of the accreditation requirements.

Others she said are the renovation of skill laboratory and equipping them, provision of the needed computers to meet up the minimum requirement for the full accreditation as well as the renovation of the classrooms that were dilapidated.

“Apart from mobilizing contractors to site and providing all the needed infrastructure to attain full accreditation, the Governor was also able to release funds within the period for us to pay the accreditation fee of more than N5million”, Hajiya Sale explained.

She said further that the Governor also release about N3 million to people.

Ketura Babas is a student of Mass communication Department, Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic, Bauchi