—- Dr Joe Akabuike (Part 1)
For the Chief Medical Director of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, COOUTH, Amaku, Awka, Dr Joe Akabuike, nothing is impossible when it comes to bringing the hospital up to standard. In this interview with the Editor-in-Chief of Fides, Jude Atupulazi, Akabuike talks about his dreams for the hospital named after a foremost Igbo leader, Ojukwu.
I can see a lot of changes and ongoing constructions all over the place, what’s actually happening?
Thank you very much; I think it’s a first step forward; the initial steps we took in trying to make this hospital a reference point, a tourist place.
The essence of this, is that we try to make sure that this hospital will attend to people within its environment and beyond.
One of challenges we have in a developing world like Nigeria is travelling to the U.S. and other places for medical tourism. So, we have a vision to make this hospital one of the best where people can start coming from America and other parts of the world to Nigeria for what is called medical tourism. We want to reverse the trend.
It is a simple thing to do; it is just infrastructure, like the one you see, and basic equipment, as well as human resources. The greatest challenge we have is infrastructure; that’s why you see buildings going up everywhere.
In terms of human resources, we have a lot of capable hands within Nigeria that can compete with people outside. People can actually come in now we have a lot of electronic medical facilities; people can arrange for surgery, come in from all over the world and do surgery and go away instead of going outside; we have done it before.
I’m sure the one that must have attracted you is the giant building network in the trauma centre. A trauma centre is actually one hub where surgical emergencies can be attended to, no matter which one, and everything that is needed to treat that person is in one building; that is why we call it a centre.
There will be X-ray, CT scanner, complex machines. And we have built offices for the people that will work there; instead of carrying a wounded person, saying you are going for X-ray, the X-ray machine is there, the CT scan is there So, it is a composite of its own and I think they are the best of their kind in the state.
What are the other specific things that are going on, in terms of what you’re are putting up, because you are talking of trauma centre, what specific areas are you putting up?
I am sure you cannot forget the ones we have started; as you can see, mother and child specialist centre is here. It takes care of deliveries and babies that are within one month. It has sophisticated equipment that takes care of newborns and deliveries. If you look around you see construction that is going on.
Before now, doctors after doing operation didn’t have a place to have some rest before they entered into another work. You can see our dental clinic that is modified. We have built a dialysis centre. You are aware that there is an increase in kidney diseases and a need for kidney transplant. Kidney transplant is not a day’s thing.
Most often people that have a renal shutdown, we manage them. We are working towards having a kidney centre here. So, this place has had a master plan which the government can take up; we’re able to put up all that is needed.
And also, buildings are not all there is about hospitals, it’s the content. If you go to our radiology, we have the best in the South East. We have first-class CTV scan. CTV scan is measured in terms of its screen. This one can get the real image in few seconds; we have digital X-rays. We have a lot; they are all there. That is where we are in terms of infrastructure and equipment.
We are introducing our modern equipment where you can have a surgery without having to cut open.
Just about a month ago, the government gave an approval of 240 million Naira to purchase modern equipment and I am sure that the contractor will supply at the end of this year. That’s how far we have gone with equipment.
Let’s go back to kidney dialysis, is it working here now?
Yes, it is functional; we have built the dialysis centre; we have the doctors and the professionals that handle kidney cases.
The problem in Nigeria is the affordability of Medicare, because you may have all the facilities in the world here, but if they are not affordable, if the common man cannot afford them, it becomes a problem. So, are you having any partnerships with people to cut down the cost of Medicare?
This is a state government hospital and if not because of government intervention, nobody can access medical treatment here because the government put a lot of money in terms of subvention to reduce the cost of drugs; so relatively, things are very very expensive and if you want to talk of the quality of care; remember, this place is a tertiary institution which is supposed to be the last bus stop in terms of medical care.
For instance, we have 64 consultants in this institution. There is no hospital in this Awka that can boast of 10 full-time consultants. We have people in specialist areas. This place does not only see patients, it also involves teaching.
So, it’s the government that is actually assisting us in terms of help to augment the salary of the workers and purchase of equipment. Things are very difficult, but relatively this place is cheaper, when compared to others.
Sometimes, patients complain about the attitude of workers, so, is there any machinery in motion to make sure that members of staff behave well towards the patients?
Thank you very much, we introduced Servicom for which we sent people for training and one of the things that happens in a teaching hospital is that it is like a market that has a direction. If you are entering a market, you should know where you are going; is it to the people that are selling cosmetics.
It’s not like one small stop hospital. So people are not fully informed about how a teaching hospital works. For instance, the entry point of this place is that if it’s emergency, you go through the accident and emergency. If you are coming for the first time, there is no referral, you go to the General Outpatient Department. There, you see general practitioners.
They will now see you and know the consultant to direct you. So if you don’t know the pattern of entering here, you keep on wandering around, saying people are wicked. So it is like a market; nobody knows what you come for. And because of that, we introduced that Servicom. And if you go around you see where they wrote ”Servicom, call us if you have challenge”.
Servicom interfaces between the patients and the staff. Since we introduced the Servicom, there has been a whole lot of improvement in terms of the quality of care our staff give to the patients. But definitely, there are some individual attitude towards everything; it is only Servicom that tries to bridge the gap. All the same, our workers have improved in their relationship with the patients in giving them the needed care.
How many doctors live here?
The people that live here are the house officers; they are 30. In hospital practice, there is what we call clinic and calls. It is a pattern. If it is clinic, you come the day you have clinic, see all the patients that you are supposed to see and go. But if you are on call, it means that you have to stay around for taking care of emergencies. And this thing is shared among the call doctors, depending on their discipline.
Each unit must have people that are on call; and if you have them on call, they have cadres of doctors, and they build what is called a unit. For instance, if you’re talking about O&G Unit, we have about four different units called firms. Each firm is headed by a Chief Consultant and most of them are consultants. we have consultants, and also have people we call senior registrars.
The senior registrars are people that will soon become the consultants. They have taken the exams, remaining the final one. Then after that we have the registrars. We have senior house officers and after that we have the house officers and then in these five people, we have about four different kinds of people and when you go for surgery you have the same kind of thing and their attention to patients is based on that. If during the call, the consultants will not sleep over but the other doctors will remain.
To be continued in next edition.