At the time the Board was inaugurated, the hospital was yet to take off as construction work at the site had been abandoned, but the Governor expressed his desire to see to it that the building project was completed soon. After inauguration, the Board faced the non-performing contractor, but it was not until September, 2009 when the Benue State Government approved the award of contract for the completion of the hospital to another contractor. The site was officially handed over to the new contractor on 2nd November, 2009 and he resumed work on the site of the hospital the following day, 3rd November, 2009. Arrangements were being made for the auxiliary contractors for water, sewage, power supply etc. to resume on site. Management continued to press on the contractor to complete the Administrative block, laboratory block, casualty/Outpatient blocks. This was yielding efforts until the main contractor, made good their threat not to return to site after December, 2011 Christmas holidays until pending issues with government were sorted out.
After further discussion with government, the main contractor returned to site by about March 2011. The company worked very hard, and by the 1st week of April, 2011 had substantially completed the Administrative block, the laboratory block and half of the Outpatient/Casualty block. Meanwhile, the Management Board met on 18th March, 2011 and reviewed the situation in the MBBS programme and was concerned that the main problem seemed to be the non-readiness of the hospital. It therefore resolved that Management should move to the hospital to occupy these blocks that were partially completed. Management through Ministry of Health requested for the above mentioned blocks and these were handed over to Management of the hospital on 18th April, 2011.
Following the official handing over of the mentioned blocks, the Chief Medical Director moved to the permanent site of the hospital (from the College of Health Sciences) and officially resumed work here on 27th June, 2011. A few toilets were fixed and a small generator was purchased to be used for computers and fans. As for furniture, the tables and chairs the hospital had purchased while at the College of Health Sciences’ premises were moved and some additional plastic chairs were purchased for use pending the supply of furniture from Government.
Other auxiliary contractors had continued to work slowly including the one for Radiology block who had almost completed his work. Unfortunately the contractor died on 20th September, 2011. When it happened, the family had expressed their intention to continue to manage the project until it was completely executed. However, when it became clear that the family neither had the requisite competence nor commitment to continue with the project it was terminated for non-performance. Government much later intervened, permitting the Management to take over the block and execute the remaining works through direct labour as well as carry out other repair works on many of the blocks and buy laboratory equipment.
With the support of Government and the Board, Management had also worked very hard, and designed a twenty bedroom block of call rooms for the hospital.
As already indicated, the hospital had now moved to its permanent site on 27th June, 2011 and had partially commenced rendering services in dialysis, the MTN Dialysis Centre having been commissioned on 21st September, 2010.
The Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH) herself was commissioned on the 9th day of March, 2012 by President Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR, in a brief but colourful ceremony which was witnessed by numerous eminent Nigerians.
Following the official commissioning, the hospital threw its doors open for patients on Monday, 26th March, 2012, with the Executive Governor of Benue State, Rt. Hon. Dr. Gabriel Torwua Suswam, his Deputy, the then Speaker, Benue State House of Assembly, Secretary to Benue State Government and Board Chairman as its first registered patients. Since then the over 300 bed capacity hospital has continued to offer excellent services to its patients.
The first baby born at the hospital was delivered on 1st September, 2012. It was quite an exciting moment for the parents and a historic one for the hospital. Apart from services in haemodialysis which the hospital started rendering since August 2011, the hospital now provides primary, secondary and tertiary health services.
The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) granted accreditation to the BSUTH at the end of her verification visit to the hospital on Wednesday, 14th November, 2012. This was necessary to enable the first set of medical students move to the next stage of their MBBS programme (Read more…), especially as the MDCN had adjudged the Federal Medical Center (FMC) here in Makurdi as being inadequate for teaching.
When work at the permanent site of the hospital was progressing satisfactorily, the Management Board during its 9th regular meeting held on Friday, 31st March, 2010 approved that the establishment positions it have earlier approved should be advertised. Consequently, the various establishment positions were advertised in Friday, 21st May 2010 edition of both The Voice and The Nation newspapers. At the end of the written and oral interview, out of the 556 candidates who were successful at the written exam, a total of 226 were recommended to the Board for possible employment. Following the approval of the Board, letters of appointment were issued to some of the candidates that were critically needed for initial take off of the hospital.
This process of engagement of staff though, gradually, continued until the hospital presently has a staff strength of 668 staff as at September, 2013.