The wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, has called for a probe into how the budget for the State House Medical Centre is being utilised.
The call comes barely one week after the management of the hospital said it would seek the commercialisation of the centre to boost its revenue.
Mrs Buhari, who addressed a gathering today (Monday) in Abuja, decried the “lack of facilities”, including syringes, at the hospital despite the huge budgetary allocation and ongoing construction there.
“Few weeks ago I was sick as well, they advised me to take the first flight out to London (but) I refused to go,” she said at the opening of a two-day stakeholders meeting on RMNCAH+N (Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, Adolescent Health and Nutrition).
“I said I must be treated in Nigeria because there is a budget for an assigned clinic to take care of us. If the budget is N100 million, we need to know how the budget is spent.
“Along the line, I insisted they call Aso Clinic to find out if the X-ray machine is working; they said it is not working. They didn’t know I am the one that was supposed to be in that hospital at that very time,” she added.
The President’s wife also decried the poor state of healthcare delivery in the country and what it portends for the people.
She recalled the recent trips made by her husband to London for medical attention and wondered what would happen to Nigerians who could not afford to travel abroad for treatment.
She said, “If somebody like Mr President can spend several months outside Nigeria, then you wonder what will happen to a common man on the street in Nigeria.”