Mohammed Musa Bello, the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, has disclosed that the Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19 in the FCT pays as much as N50,000 daily to its doctors assisting in the fight against the spread of coronavirus.
Bello also revealed that the Aliyu Modibo Umar led committee has been paying nurses, pharmacists and other supporting staff between N30,000 and N20,000 daily.
The Committee on COVID-19 presently leading the private sector initiative was set up by the administration in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak to assist in mobilizing finance and human capital to fight the pandemic in the FCT.
Bello, who used the occasion to commend the efforts of the health professionals in the fight, stated this during the FCT COVID-19 media briefing in Abuja on Sunday, April 12, 2020, and restated the administration’s commitment to the welfare of everyone at the forefront of the fight to put an end to the pandemic.
Speaking further, he expressed hope that in the coming days, Abuja will record the discharge of more patients managed in the FCT of COVID-19.
Bello cautioned that violation of the lockdown order aimed at curbing the spread of the virus would leave the FCT administration no choice than to adopt stricter measures to curb the spread of the virus in the nation’s capital.
While lamenting the rising number of confirmed cases in Abuja, he said the administration has put in place adequate measures including expanding and securing more facilities as isolation centers to manage patients in the FCT.
Meanwhile, the minister of state for the FCT, Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu, has asked the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, to build a primary healthcare facility in Wuse Central ward.
Aliyu, who made the call when the executive director of NPHCDA, Faisal Shuaib, led other management staff visited her office in Abuja at the weekend, stressed that the administration was prioritizing the primary healthcare sector for rejuvenation and service provision of service to the residents that need it most.
The minister also acknowledges the importance of the primary healthcare response in this critical period of the COVID-19 outbreak, just as she maintained that the FCT response to the pandemic would be total and focused.
Besides physical infrastructure, she also canvassed technical support of the FCT primary healthcare board in the areas of Mobile/Outreach strategy for PHC scheme implementation by way of Integrated Medical Outreach Programme (I-MOP) to strengthen immunisation and PHC programmes in the FCT and the Community Health Influencers and Service, CHIPS, programme to expand services to underserved communities in the FCT.
