By DADA AYOKHAI
Major stakeholders in the health sector have waded into the controversy surrounding the panel report on who becomes the next substantive Chief Medical Director of the Irrua Specialist Hospital in Edo State.
The stakeholders called for caution on the part of the various groups attempting to pick holes as well as rubbish the good work carried out by the panel stating that the outcome of the panel submission appeared valid and incontrovertible.
They wondered why any progressive group would want to “rubbish” the pain-staking process that led to the nomination of a suitably qualified candidate to steer the ship of the fledgling hospital .
The Irrua Specialist Hospital is a federal government owned specialist hospital established in 1993 and located in the Edo Central district of Edo State.
The hospital is presently enmeshed in a raging controversy over the outcome of the selection process which, for the first time in the hospital history, produced a non Esan indigene as its CMD
A nine-member interview panel constituted by the supervising ministry, the Federal Ministry of Health, meticulously handled the selection process involving a series of tests and interviews among the five shortlisted contenders for the coveted position.
At the end, based on the outcome of the job test and interviews, the panel recommended Dr. Mojeed Momoh for the CMD post
Of the five contestants, Dr. Momoh was the only non Esan. The others, including the acting CMD of the hospital, were of the Esan stock.
Dissent and anger descended on the public space as soon as news of the selection of a non Esan indigene for the job filtered out.
An Esan socio-cultural body, the Esan Development Union (EDU) led the onslaught to discredit the work of the nine-member panel and called for the review of the panel report on the ground that it did not favour the host community
Though EDU’s request for a review of the panel report seemed “strange” to observers, the body nonetheless continued to mount an aggressive campaign against the outcome of the selection process .
However, a Benin-based medical practitioner who is also the Medical Director of a private hospital, Dr. John Osameda, has lashed out strongly at those trying to introduce tribal sentiments into a strictly medical issue.
Dismissing the call for the review of the panel report as” wishful thinking” Dr. Osameda berated the EDU and similar groups for trying to change the outcome of a process that has come to a logical conclusion
He added that it would be tantamount to setting a” dangerous precedent” if the federal government concedes to such a frivolous request, adding there is no merit whatsoever in the call by EDU and similar groups simply because the panel report did not favour the host community .
Dr. Osameda further opined that the Irrua Specialist Hospital is a common patrimony belonging to all Nigerians, including Edo people, stressing also that every one of us has a stake in its prosperity and future, not minding that the hospital must be sited in a particular community
Similarly, Dr. Efua Itsemeh, a retired consultant at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin, scolded host communities who treat projects cited in their domain as a “birthright”, saying it is wrong to latch onto such as a license to want to “stampede” either the federal government or the rest of the country into submission
He praised the federal government for going the whole gamut of setting up a robust panel of experts to handle the selection process and urged it not to succumb to any form of threat but to remain firm and resolute in its implementation of the outcome of the panel report, stressing also that any contrary action would serve as a demotivation to the best brains applying for the available jobs
President Bola Tinubu is expected to constitutes the Federal Executive Council, FEC, with the Minister of Health taking charge of the affai
