The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, has approved the commencement of operation of the new Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido Ekiti, (FETHI) annex at Ilawe Ekiti, Ekiti state in the incoming year.
The Chief Medical Director, Prof Adekunle Ajayi, who announced the approval, said there were plans to expand the hospital’s scope of operations next year.
He said the hospital will start new areas of practice, adding that the new annex will open from January.
Ajayi spoke with reporters in Ido Ekiti i after receiving members of the House of Representatives Committee on Health, who visited the institution on a facility inspection tour.
The CMD said the hospital had been judiciously utilising the resources available to it to meet infrastructure, equipment and workers needs.
He said: “For next year, we will expand the scope of what we do. We are going to ensure that we link all our Electronic Medical Records so that the hospital in terms of clinical practice can go 100 per cent paperless.
“By next year, about 80 per cent of whatever allocation we get from the budget will be to improve the facilities in terms of medical equipment. We will also ensure that we create an integration of all the bit by by bit things that we have done in the last five years.
“Also, the hospital will begin operations at Ilawe Ekiti Annex early next year. This will be an addition to the existing ones at Ado Ekiti and Igogo Ekiti. The Minister of Health has given the directive for the Ilawe Ekiti Annex to begin operations next year”.
The visit of the House of Representatives Committee, led by the chairman, Dr Amos Magaji, to FETHI , he said, was beneficial, saying, “Our gain from the visit is huge. They (committee members) have seen the facility and our challenges. They expressed commitment to help us address some of these challenges.
“Not only in terms of budgetary allocation, but the hospital now has partners in the committee members, who we can always discuss our issues with. With this, the hospital will definitely make rapid progress towards achieving our aims”.
Among the challenges of FETHI which the CMD enumerated before the Amos Magaji-led House Committee were huge power cost, inadequate water supply, poor access roads, ecological challenges, uncertain manpower planning and need to upgrade medical facility.
The federal lawmakers, among others, inspected the Isolation Ward, new Histopathology building; new Accident and Emergency Ward, Assisted Reproductive Technology building, 150-bedded building, Molecular Laboratory and Physiotherapy Building.
The committee chairman, Magaji, lauded FETHI management for utilizing the available space and the huge expansion, saying, “We are impressed with what they have done with the resources that Federal Government has given them”.
Magaji, has said that the legislative body is to push for declaration of emergency in the health sector with a view to repositioning it to meet the needs of Nigerians.
The House Committee chairman, who said the problems hospitals in Nigeria were generic, said that resolving the problems in the nation’s health sector required multi-pronged approach, assured that it would soon bounce back when the needful was done.
He said, “We have gone round many health institutions and the problems are basically the same, lack of equipment, the manpower is a problem, equipment is a problem, the infrastructure in health institutions is also massively inadequate and of course very critical, the issue of power is killing the health institutions,” he said.
As part of efforts to resolve issues in the sector, Magaji said that the committee would invite the national leadership of all health unions to a meeting and as well all relevant MDAs over issue of non-payment of some of the arrears, bonus and salaries of some health workers.
“We are also looking at how to expand the quotas in medical admission in universities. One of the solutions is enrolment of students in medical colleges, making the study of medicine attractive in Nigeria. If we have many young people studying Medicine, even if there is japa, we will still have enough people to practice medicine in Nigeria,” Magaji said.
