Conversion of Wuye Hospital land for housing estate (I)

In a simple description, a Master plan is a document that seeks to address the physical and socio-economic needs of a community. The document is produced taking into consideration the needs of the community using the best international practice, translated into the type, quantity and quality of the services needed. For example what are the […]

In a simple description, a Master plan is a document that seeks to address the physical and socio-economic needs of a community. The document is produced taking into consideration the needs of the community using the best international practice, translated into the type, quantity and quality of the services needed.

For example what are the sizes of facilities needed for health, education, recreation, commerce, security, fire services and others, that a neighbourhood with a population of 5,000 in the federal capital city of Nigeria. There are international best practices and it is the standard that all modern plans are based on. Such were the calculations made by the International Planning Associates in order to make recommendations for Neighbourhood and District Centres in the city.

Neighbourhoods are the smallest unit in planning of the capital city. Boundaries are defined by arterial roads, while neighbourhood facilities include nursery and primary schools, family clinic, shopping centre, community hall, postal agency and police charge office. It is expected that the residents obtain their basic needs without traversing across major arterial roads. The services at the neigbourhood level are primary. Initially, they are to be provided by the public as against the private sectors.

Subsequently, some of the sites were ceded to allow the participation of the private sectors in the city, more so that the government is finding it difficult to meet its budgetary obligations. However, a school or hospital site must be developed, either by the public or private sector, in order to meet up with the recommendation of the Abuja Master plan.

According to the plan, demand for medical services in the new federal capital city and the FCT will be shaped by the demographic structure, which is characterised by a relatively high proportion of children, mothers, and middle-aged adults at above-Nigerian-average level of education and income.

The age structure suggests, at least, that the pediatric problems of children and their mothers will be important element of health care. Although adult population generally exhibits lower rates of utilisation, the relative sophistication of this population, especially in the new federal capital city, may be expected to result in a greater demand of a higher level of medical complexity than age distribution alone.

The National Health Plan, in addition to developing medical training institutions, has been focused around research, disease control and health planning. In addition, the Basic Health Service Program (BHSP) is aimed at increasing medical coverage of the population. It proposed the concept of health centres, in which the basic unit would become the Health Centre together with 5 to 20 (10 average) health clinics, the latter serving 4,000 to 8,000 persons. These would call for the establishment of 1,069 two-tier units.

Accordingly, in order to ensure adequate health service delivery by the Abuja master plan standard, lands have been provided in all the neighbourhood centres in the city for the development of neighbouhood clinics that would serve an average population of at least 3,000. Also, at each of the District Centres  a land of approximately 6Ha is provided for a General Hospital to serve a population of 20,000 to 80,000.

Because of the expected high demand of sophisticated medical care and as part of the support services appropriate to the seat of government, it is proposed, that at the apex, there would be a 1,250 bed teaching hospital for reference of patients who may require sophisticated super-specialty care, which will also be responsible for training the professional personnel for the system. This is the core of the city medical centre, now known as the National Hospital located in the Central Area District in order to maximise accessibility by public transport.

It was following the master plan’s recommendations, as explained above, that we have the Garki, Wuse, Maitama and Asokoro General Hospitals in Phase I of the city developments. But due to the lack of the implementation of these services in the Phase II, all the available public health facilities in the phase I are now over stretched much beyond their capacities.

At least for the benefit of reducing the pressure on the existing facilities, the protection of these provisions in the Phase II and subsequent phases of the city development must be considered as sacrosanct. This is for the wellbeing and protection of the city’s residents against illnesses, disease outbreaks and treating emergencies due to accidents which are all unforeseen. Health is wealth and it must be properly guarded. The authority must be committed to ensuring the protection of human lives and to abhor any action that will be inimical to the implementation of the city’s health programme.

Unfortunately, just recently, the site earmarked for the development of Wuye General Hospital, which has been reserved out of respect for the city’s health programme by all the previous FCT administrations, has now been violated by the Wike administration. It has now been fenced for the development of a housing estate. To be continued.