FG to invest more on health, education in 2019 — Minister

The Minister of Health Prof. Isaac Adewole has assured Nigerians that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration would invest more on health and education in 2019.

The Minister gave the assurance in a statement issued by Mrs Boade Akinola, Director Media and Public Relations of the Ministry on Sunday in Abuja.

According to Akinola, the Minister gave the assurance during a peer review meeting with Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) and Medical Director (MDs) across the country.

“The meeting, was to enable the participants exchange ideas, share experiences and appreciate challenges confronting each facility in order to help government address them and if necessary capture them in the 2019 budget,’’ he said.

The minister said, government would not only invest more money on health but also on education.

He added: “We need healthy people to drive the economy as we also need educated people to drive the economy so we would not neglect our human resources.

“I assure you that for 2019, this government would put more money on health and education and we would make our people proud,” the minister said.

Earlier, the Medical Director, Federal Medical Center Ebute-Meta and the host of the meeting, Dr. Adedamola Dada, said the hospital had embarked on renovation of some of the existing infrastructure in the facility.

He, however appealed to the Minister to assist the facility in persuading the Nigerian Railway Corporation to release more land space to the hospital for the required expansion.

Dada also informed the minister that since the hospital has automated its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) collection, it has witnessed continuous monthly increase in IGR and has substantially reduced the leakages.

He added that the hospital had also helped improved the capacity of staff through relevant training programmes.