Since 1983 when the construction of structures commenced at the permanent site of the Federal School of Medical Laboratory Technology in Jos, the Plateau State capital, there has hardly been any progress as the project was abandoned.
Among the structures under construction are the research laboratory, assembly hall, hostel, provost’s lodge and staff quarters.
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However, there is a renewed hope on the completion of the structures as the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said he was aware of the problems of the school and that the federal government was committed to solving them.
Dr Ehanire who spoke during his visit to the school’s site in Lamingo-Jos at the weekend, said the Provost of the school, Dr Sunday Etukudoh, should put the challenges of the institution in writing, and in bullet points, noting that each of the requests would be responded to by the permanent secretaries of different organs of government.
In his remark, Dr Etukudoh said the school was seriously in need of infrastructural facilities to boost the training of students, research and workers’ productivity.
He explained that the institution was established by the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Health in 1954 in Lagos to provide the then much needed middle and high levels manpower for the health sector of the Nigerian economy.
The provost disclosed that the contract for infrastructural development at the school’s permanent site was awarded in 1983, but that not much had been achieved due to paucity of funds and non-release of budgetary allocations.
He said the school would have been one of the government-approved COVID-19 testing centres in the country if the laboratory had been completed with adequate facilities.
