FCTA moves to seal health facilities providing services below standard 

Favour Ishember, Abuja

The Federal Capital Territory Administration  (FCTA), has vowed to seal off any health facility providing services below the recommended standard within the territory.

This was made known yesterday when the Private Health Establishments registration and monitoring committee, PHERMC,  under the Department of Medical and Diagnostics embarked on three days monitoring tour of health facilities in Abuja.

Addressing journalists after the exercise, the Director of Medical and Diagnostic, Health and Human Services Secretariat FCTA, Dr. Abubakar Ahmadu, who led the team said any facility found to perform below the recommended standard or seen to render any service beyond the scope approved will be sealed off.

He said that the essence of this visit is to have an intensive inspection of the private health facilities in the Federal Capital Territory to ensure that facilities that are registered with PHERMC function according to the services they were registered to provide.

“So far, what we have seen is that some facilities that were registered earlier are still maintaining the standard that we expect of them. But so far, we have had cause to seal the services of one particular facility, which was providing services beyond the scope of which it was registered.”

He said that whereas some facilities have provided optimum service according to the approval granted by PHERMC, some have been discovered to perform below par.

Ahmadu strongly warned that the administration will not hesitate to seal off any facility that fails to provide optimum service to the residents of FCT.

“Well, all private facilities within the FCT registered with PHERMC have clear-cut services that they have been registered to carry out so it is our expectation that all these facilities abide by that and provide services within that scope. And going beyond that, they need to seek approval to go beyond so that the facility will be inspected, and we will be able to assess if such additional services can be accommodated.

“Well, we recognise that constraints occasioned by the economy presently so we are going to work towards ensuring that the services provided by these facilities we are inspecting are not far below expectation, and if they do, we have to shut it down. But those that just have minimal things to address certainly can continue to provide services but once they go below standard, we have no choice but to seal those facilities. It is in the interest of the public that we’re doing all this.

“Once we see any facility that is operating below standard operating without qualified personnel. We are duty-bound to shut them down, and we will shut them down.” He said

The team, which is divided into five groups, is expected to inspect not less than 200 health facilities within the next three days.