The Federal Government on Friday took over the Ebonyi State University Teaching Hospital? (EBUTH) in Abakaliki and renamed it Federal Teaching Hospital.
The takeover was formalised with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding by the Federal Government and Ebonyi State Government.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, signed on behalf of the Federal Government, while Gov. Martin Elechi signed for Ebonyi State Government.
In his speech, Chukwu announced the merger of the Federal Medical Centre, Abakaliki, with EBUTH, saying that they would now be known as Federal Teaching Hospital.
“The objective of the merger is to achieve a functional teaching hospital, which will also provide adequate health care services to the people.”
“It will also provide unfettered access of modern medical training to medical and other allied students of the state university’s College of Health Sciences,” he said.
The minister said that the acquisition followed a request by the state government, which was approved by President Goodluck Jonathan on March 24, 2011.
Chukwu said that with the development, the 609-member workforce of the defunct hospital, including its extension workers, had now been incorporated into the Federal Civil Service.
Responding, Elechi thanked Jonathan for approving the takeover of the hospital, noting that it would reduce the burden of the state.
“Most of the industrial actions in the state have been embarked upon by doctors and other health unions of the hospital,’’ he said.
Elechi said that it was gratifying that the state was now witnessing more federal presence, as against the past when only the prisons service and the police were the federal institutions in the state.
The highpoint of the occasion was the inauguration of the new ward complex of the hospital by the minister on behalf of President Jonathan.