By Patrick Obia
The Chief Medical Director of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), Prof. Ikpeme A. Ikpeme has expressed optimism the institution will become a world-class health facility in no distant time.
Prof. Ikpeme stated this during the facilities tour on Thursday in Calabar, where he said the quest is to see a well-equipped hospital where anyone can easily walk in and get good services without many bottle-necks.
Addressing journalists shortly after the tour, the UCTH boss said the facilities are wearing new looks, thanks to nine hundred and fifty million Naira COVID-19 funds made available by the Federal Government of Nigeria. He said it went a long way plus the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the management.
Some of the facilities and equipment include the Molecular and Research Laboratory, Infectious Disease Isolation Treatment Center; Operative Suit 1 – cardiothoracic theater for heart surgery, Mammography machine for breast examination, Digital X-ray machine, Computerized Tomography machine, Ultrasound machines; well furnished and equipped Intensive Care Unit, 56 suits of health officers’ quarters which was started 23 years ago, solar system, among others.
“Some of the equipment comes from our annual capital grants, thankfully, the federal government has done well in terms of releasing the budgetary allocation and we have used them to acquire this equipment we didn’t have before.
“A total of nine hundred and fifty million (950,000,000) Naira; three hundred and forty-five million for the ICU, three hundred and some… million for the Molecular Lab, over one hundred million for Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) and over one hundred million for Isolation Center equipment. It was special and targeted, you chose the equipment and structure you wanted within that fixed amount you were given.”
He said though COVID-19 infections may have been reduced, the facilities and equipment can take care of any emergency and does beyond COVID.
Also fielding questions on the mass exodus of doctors from the hospital for greener pasture, he posited that the move is a national issue not only at UCTH; assuring that the management is trying their possible best to see doctors, nurses and, every health worker in the hospital is well taken care of.
“Doctors leaving the hospital is a national problem, not just the UCTH. Professionals will always migrate to where they think the pasture is greener; I can’t tell you the number that has left but some people have actually relocated.”
Dr. Ikpeme refuted claims he embezzled the COVID-19 funds as insinuated in some quarters.
“If I embezzled the COVID-19 funds as alleged, I’m not sure you would see the ICU, Molecular Laboratory, and Isolation Center among others. The issues of embezzling COVID-19 funds, no, we didn’t embezzle the funds,” he debunked.
He disclosed that the management is working to address poor service delivery, attitudinal problems from staff as well as insecurity in the hospital premises.
“Patients being asked to pay for things is because we run a packed system, it means that we have your basic needs in a pack and we encourage you to pay for that pack so that we don’t run to buy things in one place and other things in another. We are trying to run a patient-friendly system where you come in and get what you want to do. We continually strive to make it comfortable for our patients but we would like to encourage patients to understand that services come at a fee, there must be some kind of premium if you want good services.”
“We are addressing attitudes, definitely where human beings are there will be one or two attitudinal problems and when those kinds of things are brought to our knowledge we address them.”
