How FMC management saved hospital from total collapse

The dream of the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) located in Jalingo, the capital of Taraba State to give the much needed medical attention to patients patronizing the hospital would have long been truncated but for the patriotic zeal of the management of the institution.

This was the position of the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Dr. Wiza Inuwa, while playing host to the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osage Ehanire, who was in the state at the weekend to commission the multimillion Naira Amenity and Labour wards.

In spite of all the numerous challenges, which according to him are presently confronting the hospital, the management, he said has resolved to “continue to forge ahead to provide quality care to the people.”

The hospital management, over the year, as also made known by him “have the problem of recruiting consultants” which he attributed to the “distance from the capital and other cities and also difficult access.”

The CMD who is not also comfortable with the present location of the emergency ward of the hospital which was necessitated by “due to lack of space on frontage of the inherited site and also the difficulty of fitting a master plan on existing buildings” noted that the “geographical disadvantage is also at play due to the location of the hospital at the front of the hill” which according to him “tilting the water table away from the hospital resulting in chronic water shortage as boreholes dug yielded little or no water.”

Taking the Minister down the memory lane on how the hospital was established and the contributions of the state government towards its growth, as well as the efforts put in place by the incumbent leadership of the hospital to spread smiles of the faces of the patients, the “patient turnover” he said have now “outstripped infrastructural capacity and the existing facilities.”

Believing that with the current development, the hospital can go places, the need for the federal government not to relent in extending the much needed helping hands to the hospital, as opined by the. CMD can no longer be overemphasized.

Overwhelmed by the two wards and the facilities, the minister said such development would go a long way to halt Nigerians from seeking for medical assistance outside the country.

He beckoned at the hospital management not to relent in its efforts to render quality services to the people, stressing that “no matter how good and how well equipped the hospital is, if the staff are not dedicated and not friendly to patients, the dream of the hospital management would be a mirage.”

Earlier the governor, Arc. Darius Dickson Ishaku, who was represented by the commissioner for Health, Dr. Innocent Vakkai, reiterated the determination of the state government to continue to make health one of its major priorities.