Member of the House of Representatives on Monday confirmed the sorry state of the State House Medical Centre, Abuja.

The tour was undertaken by an adhoc committee chaired by a member of the All Progressives Congress, Aliyu Magaji.

The committee is investigating how N10.9 billion allocation to the clinic between 2015 and 2017 was spent.

What led to the investigation

A rant by the wife of the President, Aisha Buhari about the state of the clinic prompted the investigation.

Aisha had stated that she was advised to travel abroad for treatment after she visited the clinic for medical services.

The Hospital’s defence

Permanent Secretary, State House, Abuja, Jalal Arabi had appeared before the committee to defend the poor state of the clinic.

Arabi had denied that the clinic received N10.9bn since 2015, saying that the amount budgeted for the centre was N3.5bn.

The committee’s findings

The members found out that some key machines, including X-ray and dental machines, had failed in the last three years.

The ultrasound system was also discovered not to be working well.

At the Dialysis unit, the members were told that the machines would have to be serviced after treating one patient before another patient could be admitted.

After the tour, Magaji stated, “It’s quite disturbing what we saw. We went round the place and I can now understand what the First Lady met when she came here.

“This is a very old facility and if it’s going to answer its name, something drastic must be done. For it to be called State House Medical Centre, it’s quite disturbing. We will do our best and submit our report.

“This is just like every other local government’s health centre that we know. There is nothing interesting about it. I commend the personnel for working in this condition.”