The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Friday in Ilorin launched
the delivery of medical equipment to 12 health facilities across the country tagged “Tertiary Health Institution
Hospital Equipment Intervention.”
The JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is’haq Oloyede, in his remark at the presentation of the equipment at University of Ilorin
Teaching Hospital (UITH), said the board facilitated the delivery of medical equipment to carefully selected health
facilities across the six geopolitical zones of the country.
He added that the intervention was to support government’s efforts aimed at addressing the huge medical infrastructure gap.
He said the COVID-19 pandemic provided the much-needed impetus for countries around the globe to do the needful
by breaking barriers and tapping into available opportunities.
He explained that “for us in Nigeria, the pandemic served as a wake-up call that opened our consciousness to the need
for adequately equipped public health institutions to complement our highly acknowledged skilled force of medical personnel.
“It is in pursuit of this noble goal that JAMB, in its wisdom, decided to enter into partnership with a grant agency in the United
States of America to equip 12 tertiary health institutions in Nigeria.
“This is premised on our fervent belief that we could address the deficits in this particular sector of our nation if every segment
of the society contributes its quota, no matter how little, to confronting the lack in the critical areas of our society
such as health, food and education.”
He recalled that the partnership with Project-Commission on Urgent Relief and Equipment (C.U.R.E) started in 2019 when
a delegation from the board travelled to the U.S. to explore the possibility of establishing another foreign prometric centre
for its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) as is the case in about 10 other countries.
He noted that Project C.U.R.E supplied free medical equipment to needy facilities across the globe and that all that is required
of the recipient health facilities is to provide logistics to convey the equipment from Project C.U.R.E warehouse to their locations
anywhere in the world.
He said “JAMB, therefore, decided to key into this opportunity as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility and to boost the
capacity of the health sector.
“The board quickly arranged a meeting with the donor agency in the U.S. and made necessary arrangements. The encouraging report
of the delegation propelled JAMB to pursue the project.”
Oloyede said that JAMB paid shipping cost of 247,500 dollars for a “door-to-door” port transportation of the equipment from the
Project C.U.R.E distribution centre to our port in Nigeria.
“The board also paid the port agents and local transportation of about N25 million.”
He commended the Federal Government in its efforts to assist the board in transportation costs and taking delivery of the medical equipment
and the approval to increase the grant to ₦750 million with effect from 2023.
Dr Emmanuel Ndukwe, the JAMB Chairman, commended the novel ideas of Oloyede in facilitating the equipment to Nigerian tertiary hospitals.
He advised the beneficiary hospitals to make judicious use of the equipment, while also commending Project C.U.R.E for the humanitarian gesture.
The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of UITH, Prof. Yusuf Dasilva, commended the board for donating the state of the art
equipment.
He added that the equipment would go a long way to assist the hospital to provide necessary services to the people.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some of the selected hospitals to benefit from the equipment include University of Maiduguri
Teaching Hospital in Borno, Federal Medical Centre Azare in Bauchi State, Yusuf Maitama Sule University Teaching Hospital in Kano State.
Some others are Federal Medical Centre, Gusau, Zamfara State, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Kwara State, University of Medical Sciences,
Otukpo, Benue, and University of Nigeria Nsukka Teaching Hospital, Nsukka.(NAN)
