The Management of Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, Lafia, Nasarawa State has dismissed 10 of its staff for stealing and selling blood meant for patients.

Dr Hassan Ikrama, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lafia.

“Some of them were engaged in stealing of blood from the blood bank and selling the same to private hospitals and diverting money meant for the hospital.

“Some are using hospital equipment to conduct private medical investigation, they charge patients and put the money in their pockets” he added.

He noted that all the dismissed staff were investigated and found culpable by a committee that looked into the matter.

Ikrama said that when he was appointed as the CMD, he discovered many leakages in the finances of the facility which needed to be blocked.

“Instead of the internally generated revenue of the hospital to improve, individuals were busy diverting it for personal use, as a result, services were going down on a daily basis.

“The hospital prior to my coming was lacking so many machines, had only one theatre, only 200 beds for admission, one clinic, insufficient offices for doctors.

“That was why most patients were being referred to either Jos, Federal Medical Centre Keffi or National Hospital Abuja due to lack of machines and space at the hospital,” the CMD said.

Ikrama, however, said that the hospital management had taken on the challenges and were able to increase the number of theatres to three, clinics to eight, scanning machine from one to eight.

“Other initiatives to reposition the hospital include the provision of 200 additional beds, renovation of wards, toilets among others.”

He added that more technical and other specialists have been employed to strengthen services to patients patronising the facility daily.

“We have 40 permanent and other visiting consultants in different fields, over 100 Doctors apart from Nurses, Pharmacists and Laboratory Technicians, among others.

“We also acquired brand new scan and digital Xray machines that patients were hitherto sent to Keffi or Jos because we do not have them,” he added.

Ikrama, therefore, assured members of the public that the management of the hospital would do everything possible to ensure better service delivery

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