Sowore Slams Gombe Governor Over State Or Health Sector.

Former Presidential Candidate of African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore has expressed his concerns about the state of affairs at the hospital and the health sector in general. 

Mr. Sowore condemns the State Governor's handling of the health sector in the state. Sowore in a post on Monday, 1st September critisized the handling of the health sector by the Governor. 

He said: "Of Governor Inuwa Yahaya's incompetence, cruelty, and wickedness at Gombe Specialist Hospital! The health sector in Gombe State is collapsing before our eyes, and the blame lies squarely with Governor Inuwa Yahaya. What should be a system of healing has been reduced to a structure of neglect, incompetence, and wicked governance. 

The situation inside the hospitals speaks volumes. In the Surgery Department, senior doctors like Dr. Bashir and Dr. Ajiboye are away on leave, leaving only Dr. Mabewa and Dr. Bida on the ground with no equipment, support, or motivation, while Dr. Gideon has already traveled out. 

Beneath them, seven house officers are left to carry the burden of an entire department that handles some of the most critical, life-or-death cases on a daily basis. The Paediatrics Department is barely surviving with only one Senior Registrar, Dr. Burak, present. His colleague, Dr. Natuwa, is away on leave, leaving six house officers to shoulder the care of countless children in need. 

The Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department, a lifeline for mothers, is in shambles. While specialists like Dr. Sagir remain on duty, the status of Dr. Garba is uncertain, and there are no Medical officers at all. Six house officers cannot be expected to carry the crushing weight of emergencies in maternal health. 

In Medicine, only Dr. Haruna, a specialist, and Dr. Ibrahim, a Senior Registrar, remain. Once again, there are no Medical Officers. Six house officers are stretched to the limit, forced to function in conditions that make mistakes not just likely, but inevitable. 

Even those doctors and nurses who remain are treated with indignity. Salaries are miserably poor, with some doctors earning as little as ₦198,000 a month, barely enough to survive. Nurses are paid even less, a fact that further deepens the despair. 

These are the professionals expected to save lives, yet they themselves are condemned to poverty. The rot goes deeper. Essential life-saving equipment and medications are almost entirely absent. In the labour ward, in the gynaecological emergency unit, in the paediatric emergency unit, and even in accident and emergency, there is not a single functioning oxygen cylinder. 

Mothers in labour, children in convulsions, and victims of trauma are left without the most basic support. In the paediatric emergency unit, when a convulsing child is brought in, doctors are forced to hand parents a list of emergency drugs, syringes, and cannulas to purchase outside before treatment can begin. Every wasted minute costs lives. Drugs like adrenaline, diazepam, and phenobarbital, medications no hospital should ever run out of, are simply unavailable. Basic instruments such as pulse oximeters, sphygmomanometers, and thermometers are missing from entire wards. 

The result is a workforce that is overworked, underpaid, and left vulnerable to error. These errors are not the fault of the doctors and nurses they are the inevitable outcome of a system starved of manpower, resources, and leadership. The reason is because there is no profit in paying doctors better wages or supplying oxygen cylinders. There are no inflated contracts to be awarded for thermometers or syringes. Instead, Governor Inuwa Yahaya channels billions into vanity projects, such as the ₦68 billion state secretariat, a project that was originally bid at ₦30 billion by a contractor reportedly linked to him. Over ₦30 billion is said to have been skimmed off that single project, money that could have transformed healthcare across Gombe State. 

This collapse is deliberate neglect, born of corrupt priorities. It is the mark of a governor who values self-enrichment over human life. And the victims are the people of Gombe, mothers left to die in labour, children lost to preventable illnesses, and families destroyed by a system designed to fail them. What Governor Inuwa Yahaya has done is more than incompetence; it is cruelty; it is wickedness, and it is a crime against humanity. SAM SAM BABU FASHI!"

ReadersNG