A public affairs analyst has lauded the complimentary roles of the management of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH), Gwagwalada, under the leadership of Professor Bissala Ekele, while calling for the quick completion of abandoned General Hospital also located in Gwagwalada, to ease the traffic and congestion occasioned by lack of secondary health care facilities in the area.

The Public Analyst, Abubakar Yusuf, urged the Ministers of the Federal Capital Territory to accord priority to the abandoned Gwagwalada General Hospital project which has now become a hideout for criminal elements in the area.

He argued that there was no justification abandoning the project as similar projects in other local government areas of the FCT have been completed and put to use.

“With General Hospital in Kwali, Kuje, Bwari, Abaji, AMAC and other adjoining locations, Gwagwalada should not be an exception,” he said, adding “this is naked denial of health care facilities in FCT amid COVID-19.

“The University of Abuja Teaching Hospital UATH and the Town Clinic located in the town was already overstretched by the lack of General Hospital in Gwagwalada which is supposed to serve as secondary health institution,” stressing that “the Primary Health Care and Tertiary Health Care roles of the current facilities were already threatened.”

He advised the management and community leaders of the two existing facilities to manage them very well to encourage government to complete the abandoned General Hospital that has attained 70 per cent completion, before being abandoned.

“It is worrisome that facilities provided in the new General Hospital abandoned for over 10 years have been vandalized and the place taken over by homeless people who have converted the edifice to personal homes.”

He appealed to the two FCT Ministers to take the health care of the residents seriously, particularly with the upsurge of population in the nation’s capital.

“The University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, and remodeling and renovation template would bridge the gap occasioned by dearth of health care facilities, not only in Gwagwalada, but the entire Federal Capital Territory and adjoining states,” Yusuf said.