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.”

JAMB Registrar 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 the government’s efforts aimed at addressing the huge medical infrastructure gap brought to fire by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“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,” Mr Oloyede explained.

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.

The JAMB registrar 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.”

Mr Oloyede said that JAMB paid a 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, Professor 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.

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.

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)