VAM News Update

THE Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has cautioned the state Governor Ademola Adeleke to pocket his lamentation over what he described as the dwindling number of experts in the medical field, saying the governor’s inhuman policy has been the reason for the dearth of medical personnel in the state.

Governor Adeleke, who was represented by his Special Adviser On Public Health, Dr Akindele Adekunle, at the 9th Annual International Oncology Multidisciplinary Team Symposium organized by the Department of Surgery, Faculty of Clinical Science, Obafemi Awolowo University OAU, Ile-Ife, Osun State, had on Tuesday, decried the depleting number of experts in the medical field in the state.

In his comment on the issue at stake, the Osun State chairman of the APC, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, in Osogbo, noted that Governor Adeleke was not being truthful on the real cause of the scarcity of healthcare workers in the government establishments in the state.

Lawal explained that as long as Adeleke is hell-bent on politicizing the health sector, just like other sectors in the state, the challenges associated with them would never abate.

Lawal hinted that he had expected Adeleke to be courageous enough to own up and disclosed to the surgeons at the beginning of the three-day symposium that he maliciously sacked several hundreds of the state workers through the invocation of his obnoxious Executive Order Number three, a day after he was sworn in as the state governor.

The state APC chairman, who explained that it was improper for Governor Adeleke to approbate and reprobate at the same time, asked if it did not occur to him that he was only playing with the precious lives of the people of the state through his mass sack of the health workers.

Lawal stated further that Adeleke cannot pretend not to know that since his sack of the health workers, the public hospitals in the state have become shadow of themselves.

In the words of the state chairman: “Governor Adeleke cannot pretend not to know that there are crises in the health sector in the state caused by his flagrant misuse of executive orders through which he sacked the hundreds of the health services providers.

“Adeleke cannot feign ignorance of the fact that hundreds of the healthcare workers in the state had also resigned their appointments for fear of unknown and sought greener pastures abroad.

“All the entreaties of the eminent stakeholders in the state to the governor to reconsider the plight of the maliciously sacked state health workers fell on the deaf ear of the governor on the excuse that the state government has no resources to pay them.

“It is preposterous for Governor Adeleke to begin to lament the dwindling number of the experts in the health sector in the state as he was the principal reason for the parlous state of the health care delivery system in the state.

“There is no government that is worth its salt that will afford to play politics with the health sector just the way and manner that Governor Adeleke’s administration has been doing.

“Adeleke should carry his lamentation over the poor healthcare status in the state to the marine as it grossly lacks genuineness . I see it as a mere smokescreen to serve as a false concern.

“Political pundits would have thought that Adeleke was expecting the ghosts to replace the health workers that he sacked on his second day in the office.

“Now that it has dawned on him that he had made a policy somersault by needlessly sacking the innocent state health workers who passed through the crucible of employment interviews, Governor Adeleke should retrace his step without further delay and reinstate the sacked state health workers and stop his hypocritical lamentation”, Lawal counselled.

However, in a counter response, the Osun State PDP has asked the APC to busy themselves with substance engagement of the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke instead of frivolities and idle talks reminiscent of a confused, gasping opposition.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Osun PDP Chairman, Hon Sunday Bisi, condemned attempt by the APC to distract attention of Nigerians from the import of Governor Ademola Adeleke in his address delivered by the Special Adviser On Public Health, Dr Akindele Adekunle at the annual symposium organized by the Department of Surgery, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Health science, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

Part of the statement read, “While His Excellency was admonishing the Surgeons to join hands with the government at all levels and across the states of the federation, to address what is fast becoming a national emergency of mass emigration in the health sector, the APC minnows were quick to infuse their ‘one corner politics’ into such critical issue.

“Governor Adeleke in essence, was laying credence to his workable interventions in the health sector by providing a conducive working environment for doctors and other health practitioners with a view to motivating them to stay on their job in the country and not just Osun State. Attendence at the symposium was well beyond the conceptual sphere of Osun State and even Nigeria, and one wonders how it was so difficult for the APC to understand this.

“The state APC wanderers are advised to limit themselves to their hand to mouth politics and not poke near frank and productive interaction that is strange to their anti-people DNA.

“APC record in the health sector in the state was not only terrible but frightening. Many consultants and doctors in critical departments in the state health facilities who have left their job by force of resignation or death were never replaced. All entreaties made to them by these doctors to look into their deteriorating working conditions were rebuffed throughout their inglorious reign in the state.

“Today, doctors in the state owned Uniosun Teaching Hospital, and other health facilities are now being treated with the dignity they deserve. The Residency Training Allowance hitherto forbidden by the APC has already been approved for the doctors, amongst many other frantic efforts of Governor Ademola Adeleke, to turn around the all important sector.

“It is therefore strange that APC would conjure some filthy guts to criticize the efforts of Governor Ademola Adeleke in addressing the mess piled up by the APC in this regard for several years. That to us was nothing but affront on common sense.

“The good people of the state must note that the PDP government of Governor Ademola Adeleke has and will not sack any personnel in the state health sector. Those placed on hold were the knee jerking haphazard and wishy-washy trappings set by the teary government of yesterday.

“A government that needed to wait till it got hammered by the electorate in the state couldn’t have had any other intentions than to destroy the state with all sorts of wee hours, vengeful decisions, which the new government had to reverse for a fraud proof and desperation free process.”