‘Harmony is needed to improve health sector’

What is your assessment of Nigeria’s health policy? It starts with the health bill, which has still not been signed. If you look at the health bill, you will see that it is very comprehensive. It takes care of a lot of issues but unfortunately, it has not been signed. And one of the reasons why […]

What is your assessment of Nigeria’s health policy?
 It starts with the health bill, which has still not been signed. If you look at the health bill, you will see that it is very comprehensive. It takes care of a lot of issues but unfortunately, it has not been signed. And one of the reasons why the House of Assembly has not signed it, is because of the pressure by other health professionals. It is so unfortunate. You are all aware there is a national strike but Akwa Ibom State is not involved, all our hospitals are functional, and it only affects federal establishments.
 I think in the health sector, the professional bodies need to come together. What I am trying to say is that I may be a medical doctor but I will not claim to say I am better than a nurse, pharmacist or a laboratory technician. In terms of health, everybody is important- everybody has a major contribution to make. It is our contributions together that actually brings the quality that we are looking at, but the truth is that there is always a leader, and the sooner the health workers come up with that realization the better. Everywhere in the world, the doctor is the leader of the health team, but everybody seems to be fighting the doctor, it’s wrong.
 
What do you think are the challenges militating against the realization of the dreams of Governor Godswill Akpabio in the health sector?
What I will say is that the greatest challenges are basically the attitude of our people. When you have people who really do not know anything about change there is always a problem but we know that Governor Akpabio is a change agent and he believes that things can change.
 We are working on the attitude of our staff; we are looking for ways to motivate them as well as monitor them. If you look at the press, especially television; you will realize that almost on a weekly basis, we have monitoring teams that go out to pay both scheduled and unscheduled visits to our hospital establishments across the state.
When I came on board as commissioner, I actually made commitments that I will visit at least one hospital a day and we are looking at 50. That is a lot.
 Why we have scheduled visits and unscheduled visits is to go and take people unawares, so people know that at any time, a monitoring team can come to visit so they begin to sit up and work. That is the first thing, the second is finance.
With so much infrastructural development going on in the state, health sector cannot expect to take everything because the government is not concentrating all its efforts on health alone The government is doing everything, so, it means that we also have to fight for whatever share but I would say that by and large, the governor has been very attentive to health. I have not even mentioned the free health programme, which is on course.
 
The Akwa Ibom State government is spending over N8.4 billion ($52 million) on medical tourism yearly. Is there any hope of curbing the trend when the 20th Anniversary Hospital is completed?
 The 20th Anniversary Hospital is conceived as the state of the art referral hospital. The concept is not just about building another hospital but building a hospital that meets international standard. The hospital will be ready by next year.
 It is difficult actually to change the attitudes and perceptions of Nigerians towards medical tourism even when the best hospitals are available. The hospital is conceptualized as an intervention that will reduce medical tourism and its attendant capital flights. The idea is that too many of our people will not be going out, we are not saying that people will not go out because people will always go. But some people who, genuinely have a problem, would rather not want to spend that much money and time to go outside. They will know that they can have access to the kind of care they want, that is the first thing we are looking for and that is quality.
How will you address the issue of quality when there are manpower problems?
 We are looking for an operator who can give us that quality care, the type of quality obtainable in the best hospitals in the world. In terms of management, we are also looking for quality managers. We realize that we could have some manpower gaps if we decide to run the hospital ourselves, we probably will not be able to offer the kind of services we are looking for. There are four things we are looking for from our proposed operators. The first is being able to provide quality medical care – the kind of service you will find in hospitals in Europe and India.
 The next thing we are looking at is sustainability. So, we are looking for an operator who will not only provide quality services but also that operator that would spend the next 15 years to sustain the quality of care that will be offered.
 The third thing is that the operator must be able to maintain the facilities. If you look at the way that hospital is built, you know it meets international standard and you must have somebody who should be able to maintain the facilities.
 The fourth thing we are looking at is technology transfer. We are looking for an operator who would be able to transfer knowledge through training over a period of time by bringing Nigerians up because they will not operate forever. So that whenever they leave we would have developed the capabilities  of those to also run the hospital.

How many operators have so far indicated interest to run the hospital when completed?
Already, we have a number of international hospital groups indicating interest. So far, we have had about three of the top India hospital groups that have indicated interest in running the hospital, two of them have shown serious interest. I am talking about the Primus Group. The Managing Director of that group came here, all the way from India. I am told it is the second largest hospital in India.
 Even the Apollo Group has to an extent, indicated interest but they have not shown that level of commitment shown by the other group. They have come to Uyo to talk one on one but they have not formally sent their proposals to the governor. We have also had groups from America and Canada. First Care has indicated interest also.