- Minister, Senator Mamora, Hails Medical Director, Says FMH is Proud of his Achievements
- MD Thanks Federal Government, Health Ministers, Staff, Azare Communities for Support
- FMC Azare now Positioned to be Among the Best Medical Centres in North East Nigeria
By Amos Tauna, Azare
The Minister of State for Health, Dr Adeleke Olorunnimbe Mamora has applauded the efforts of the Dr Abdullahi Ibrahim-led leadership of Federal Medical Centre, Azare, Bauchi State in transforming the centre to compete favourably with any specialist hospital in the country.
“I am pleased with what l have seen on ground physically and all that has been done to ensure human capital development to be able to handle any case that comes to the centre.
“The efforts of the staff towards meeting the desire of patients is highly commendable coupled with the equipment on ground to effectively take care of patients’ diseases in a modern way.”
According to him, “I am strongly convinced that in the next couple of years, the Federal Medical Centre, Azare will be a reference point to many Nigerians following the commitment of staff I have seen in the Centre.
Speaking at the 20th anniversa ry ceremony of the centre and commissioning of projects, the Minister hailed the efforts of the management and staff of the facility for their selfless services towards ensuring the hospital stands the test of modern times and enjoined them to redouble their efforts, saying that the world is dynamic and have to move with the time.
The Minister and other personalities went around to commission most of the projects executed.
Earlier, the Medical Director, Federal Medical Centre, Azare, Dr Abdullahi Ibrahim, noted that the Centre located along the ever-busy Kano-Maiduguri expressway, has made it a Centre of patronage for patients and their neighbours from Bauchi, Borno, Yobe, Jigawa and even Kano states.
He explained that as the Centre continued to record an influx of patients from both far and near, the need to cater for these teeming clients called for expansion of services through employment of skilled manpower, provision of state-of-the-art medical equipment and infrastructure to ensure effective and efficient healthcare service delivery.
According to the Medical Director, the Centre which took off in 2001 with a staff strength of less than 50 clinical and non-clinical staff, 152 bed capacity and 46,254 annual average patient inflow can now boast of almost 2,000 staff workforce, 412 bed capacity and over 140,000 annual average patient inflow.
He added that, “the management has been trying its best to maintain a self-motivated and skilled workforce by encouraging and sponsoring staff to undergo long term training. So far, a total of 288 senior/junior clinical staff and 122 senior/junior non-clinical staff were sent for long term training from 2014-2021. In addition, many staff have benefitted from short courses including subspecialty training in various fields of Medicine and Surgery. It is worth mentioning that I am the first Medical Director to be fully trained up to the rank of a Consultant by this hospital.”
He further explained, “the hospital commenced clinical services with provision of a General Out-Patients Department (GOPD) for all non-emergency cases, accidents & emergency care, surgery and medical wards for in-Patient care of male and female clients as well as paediatric and obstetrics/gynaecological wards for children and women respectively. Basic laboratory and radiology services were also rendered. These services were provided by few medical officers, nurses/midwives, technicians and pharmacists. Today, the hospital has grown significantly with almost all medical subspecialty departments and units found in any well-established tertiary hospital. Services are now provided by specialist consultants, resident doctors, experienced medical officers, qualified nurses/midwives, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, radiographers, physiotherapists, among others.”
He stated that successive regimes from inception of the Centre had acquired numerous medical equipment’s like static X-ray, ultrasound, mammography, fluoroscopy, and laundry machines, generators, stressing that in the last eight years, the hospital has acquired more state of the art medical equipment like Computerised Tomography ( CT) machine, mobile and static digital x-rays, 4D ultrasound machine, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), Pheco-emulsification machine, digital fundus camera, Vitek automated blood culture machine, power generator.
He explained that the recent intervention by President Muhammadu Buhari to all federal teaching hospitals, specialty hospitals and federal medical centres to address the outbreak of COVID-19 has gone a long way to address the critical medical equipment needs of the hospital.
Dr Abdullahi Ibrahim expressed delight that the Centre has a fully equipped molecular laboratory, a 10 bedded adult and paediatric, intensive care unit, isolation centre and a large stock of personal protective equipment (PPEs), stressing that the Central Bank of Nigeria under its corporate social responsibility (CSR) constructed, furnished and equipped a multibillion naira ophthalmology complex and pathology complex in the Centre.
“I am proud to announce that some of the equipment in the complexes are the only ones in the whole of North-eastern Nigeria. The TETFUND under its Special Intervention Project constructed and furnished a multimillion naira academic and administrative block for the Adamu Adamu College of Nursing Sciences and academic activities has since commenced with admission of over 200 students to study Nursing and Midwifery,” he explained.
In order for the Centre to fulfil its mandate of efficient healthcare service to humanity and promote research, he noted that much emphasis was given to service improvement, adding that the centre provides the cheapest cost-effective clinical services in the whole country in comparison to other federal tertiary hospitals, even though they all go to the same market.
He noted that the Centre has a comprehensive social welfare system where any patient brought in as an emergency and requires surgical/medical intervention and has no money is attended to with no bias, stressing that such patients benefit from the welfare services which they settle at a later date.
He assured that this can be attested to by all and sundry.
He stated that “the present management has pursued with vigour and enthusiasm the accreditation of residency training programmes in the Centre. Specifically, the Centre has secured accreditation for residency training from the National and West African Postgraduate Colleges in Radiology and West African Postgraduate College in paediatrics. Residents are now receiving training towards becoming specialists in these medical fields.”
He added that accreditation teams from the Postgraduate Colleges for residency training in obstetrics and gynaecology, internal medicine and ophthalmology departments have visited the Centre, saying that based on their interactions with them, they are…