LEGAL FIREWORKS : Students battle UBTH for offering medical programme without accreditation

*Demand N100m each for ‘wasting’ 5 years on studies

BY TITUS AKHIGBE, BENIN

The University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH is embroiled in an issue bordering on one of the many courses of study in the school. Owing to this, Midlex, a legal firm, has threatened to drag the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) to court for failing to secure accreditation for the Higher National Diploma (HND)  for Paramedic Technology Department under the Institute of Health Sciences and Technology of the institution.

Addressing journalists in Benin during a press conference/protest, the senior partner of the legal firm, Enyawuile Abednego, said it is painful to have allowed students to have put in five years of their life into a programme and at the end, the programme is not certified and they can’t be mobilised for their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.

He said what the UBTH has done to the students who have graduated from their institution is disservice, consequently, the institution should pay each student N100 million as compensation for their wasted years.

Ebednego added that they are giving the UBTH seven days ultimatum to begin work on the accreditation process of the HND programme in the institution or be prepared to face legal fireworks from them.

“We are writing the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, and we have told them if within seven days they do not establish a template to get a retroactive accreditation of that course, we are going to go to every length and every extent within our powers to ensure that this injustice is addressed. And I’ve told them, it’s only to get the accreditation.

“Moreso, each of these students who have graduated, they’ll be given N100 million each for the injustice”, Abednego said.

One of former students of the institution, Favour Owhe, lamented that she is stranded and doesn’t know what to do and that having been trained by her parents, they expected her to also assist them but now, she can’t even get a job with her certificate because the course is not accredited.

“I’m a paramedic that recently graduated from the University of Benin Teaching Hospital Department of Paramedic Technology. And I’m standing here today not as a paramedic, but I’m standing here to bring up my cry to tell the University of Benin Teaching Hospital Management to accredit the department.

“How can we graduate from a school for five years and we cannot have a license? We cannot go for NYSC. It’s as if we wasted our five years of study. I cannot pay school fees for five years for one year, two years, three years. I wrote exams. I went to the hospital. I did my internship. Every clinical skill I gathered, but I cannot make use of it because there’s no accreditation for this course.

“My parents are expecting more from me as a graduate. to go and work, to go to the labour market and work. I cannot even apply for a job because I don’t have an NYSC discharge certificate. Just because UBTH management have refused to accredit our course. Please, UBTH management, it’s our right to have a course that is accredited”, pleaded.

Reacting, the UBTH Public Relations Officer, Mr. Iyen Osaretin said the protesting students are not students of the institution noting that, if they were, they should have come to the institution.

“They are not our students. If they were, they should have come to the hospital and make their complaint known to the management of the institution”, Osaretin said.