....Debunks Extortion Rumour
By Mmaduabuchi Onwumelu
Dr Josephat Akabuike last Tuesday marked his one year in office as the Chief Medical Director, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Amaku, Awka, in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State.
Addressing newsmen at the hospital's Boardroom, Dr Akabuike, a former Commissioner for Health, Anambra State called on Ndi Anambra to maximize the modern equipment available in the hospital to meet their different health needs.
He assured that under his watch in the past one year, the hospital had been repositioned administratively and infrastructurally to meet international best practices in the health care delivery.
Dr Akabuike who listed some of the achievements of his administration within one year to include the completion and commissioning of Mother and Child Referral Centre, Re-accreditation of residency training programme in pediatrics, and for the fifth MBBS of the medical and dental council of Nigeria, and the accreditation of her Internal medicine for residency training.
Some other achievements Dr Akabuike identified include the construction of consultants lounge as a means of ensuring that consultants are always within the hospital premises which is the first of its kind in the Eastern region, building and equipping of the dialysis unit and training of renal nurses in the use of the equipment and other such equipment like the Mammography machines and the CT Scan.
He promised that these reforms which include the retraining and reward of Staff will translate into better service delivery for her patients.
On an alleged claim made on the social media that the hospital is extorting patients by forcing them to patronize a particular restaurant within the hospital, the acting deputy Chairman of the Hospital's Medical Advisory Committee, Dr Nnaemeka Umedum who was charged with the investigation of the claims, denied such extortations but explained that rather the food sold from the said restaurant was subsidized for the patients at a fifty percent discount when compared to what patients pay in other teaching hospitals where there was need for control of food that come into the specialized wards.
For his part, the President, National Association Of Resident Doctors, NARD, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Awka, Dr Emmanuel Chukwuka praised the administration of the hospital under the leadership Dr Akabuike for addressing the welfare needs of resident doctors and implementing to the letter the demands captured in Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, CONMESS for resident doctors.
The highlights of the press briefing was the tour of the hospital facility and different equipment in the hospital and stock taking after one year he became in-charge of the tertiary hospital.
