FMC Jalingo has fewer than 15 consultants, can’t offer some services – MD

THE 20-year-old Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Jalingo, Taraba State, currently has fewer than 15 consultants in its workforce and cannot render certain services, the facility’s Medical Director, Aisha Adamu, has revealed.

Adamu said the hospital had at least 30 departments and other units.

The immediate past president of the National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria, Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, told The ICIR that tertiary hospitals like the Jalingo FMC should have at least three consultants in each department to guarantee effective service delivery.

Last year, three consultants who worked in critical departments left the facility. They were in anaesthesia, intensive care unit (paediatrics) and family medicine departments.

The federal government had just equipped the intensive care and the anaesthetic sections of the hospital. But the consultants abandoned them and headed for Saudi Arabia.

Four other doctors also left the hospital recently to pick jobs abroad.

Consultants are expert health professionals who support hospitals’ operational efficiency. They help in policy formulation, implementation, training of less-experienced staff and general administration of health facilities.

Conducting some procedures and using some equipment largely depend on their expertise.

Our reporter found out from the facility’s staff that other cadres of professionals who got jobs abroad resigned from the hospital, and more are willing to go.

Consequently, there are essential services that the hospital cannot render.

It lacks specialists to interpret some of its tests, and there are types of equipment that it does not have the human resources to handle.

“We don’t have the specialists to interpret some of those things. We have a well-equipped ICU, but we don’t have the resident and anaesthetic (to manage it),” Adamu, the medical director, said.

She noted that replacing workers who leave the hospital does not come easy.

“You have to go through some processes. You have to go through the Federal Ministry of Health to the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, the Budget Office, Federal Character Commission before you get a replacement. That will take a year. That is the process we are in now to make sure that we replace a lot of them.”

The hospital complements its inadequate consultants with visiting specialists who come around for about a week and leave.

Footing their hotel bills remains a challenge for the hospital’s management.

Checks by our reporter showed that the nearest tertiary hospital to the Jalingo FMC is the FMC Yola, Adamawa State.

The FMC in Yola is more equipped and has more specialists.

Suppose the Jalingo FMC makes any referral to the FMC Yola; it will take the patient over four hours to get to the facility because the Jalingo-Yola Road is very dilapidated.

There is a distance of approximately 150 kilometres between the two towns, which should be less than a two-hour drive if the road is good.

Background to the story

In response to COVID-19 and the state of low preparedness for the pandemic in Nigeria in 2020, corporate organisations and individuals donated billions of Naira to purchase equipment and revamp the nation’s health sector.

Nigeria, which recorded its first case of the disease on February 27, went on to lock down some states on March 30, as infections from the virus soared nationwide.

Among other measures, President Muhammadu Buhari constituted the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and approved emergency procurements of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical measures to combat the pandemic.

The bulk of the country’s spending on the disease was from the Nigeria Private Sector Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) Relief Fund, donated by corporate organisations and individuals.

As of June 2020, 181 corporate organisations and individuals had contributed N30.2 billion to the fund.

At the end of the year, the government spent N38.59 billion from it, part of which was N49.65 billion (N49,652,400.00) approved for the Jalingo FMC for emergency procurement of medical equipment.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/fmc-jalingo-has-less-than-15-consultants-cant-offer-some-services-md/

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