The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan has revealed plans to cooperate with the new administration of Sir Seyi Makinde to deliver quality healthcare to the people of the state and beyond.
He added that he was so happy when he heard the new governor of Oyo State speak about focusing on health care delivery during his speech after he was inaugurated at the Obafemi Awolowo Stadium, Ibadan on May 29.
The CMD also submitted that the focus of his administration is to change people’s perception about the hospital, stressing that patients’ comfort and workers’ welfare are important to ensure that the hospital renders optimal services.
Professor Otegbayo made these revelations on Friday during a press conference inside the hospital’s boardroom to mark the 100 days of his administration in office.
The Professor said henceforth, he wants patients to have pleasant experience when they visit the hospital.
His words “The two focal areas of this administration is patient comfort and staff welfare. So my targets are along the line of making patients comfortable to make sure their experience when they come to see us is pleasant and they can recommend us.
“I want a situation where the phobia people have for UCH would not be there. Any in-patient coming from Igbo Oloyin or Ode Olo would not need to know anybody to access our service and get optimal service. That bothers me a lot because a number of people will say they don’t want to come to UCH.
“Even when I was practicing fulltime as a clinician, a lot of our patients will come to me that they want to see me but they don’t want to come to UCH asking to see us elsewhere. I will say no and that saddens my heart and many times they go elsewhere.
“This is not good for our image, so we want our public perception to improve and that is why we are putting all these policies in place, training and retraining our staff and letting them know the position of management on issues.”
The CMD identified staff attitude and funding as the major challenges confronting the hospital, stating that his administration is trying to address the two major issues.
“The major challenge is staff attitude because when our staff are doing their own bit everyone in his/her own micro environment, if he/she is doing his/her best, then the hospital will be known for the best but unfortunately we have a few but I must emphasise that most of our staff are doing well.
“They are working effectively but you know the saying that it is one slave that made them to blame 200 slaves. So those few apples have spoilt the whole basket of apples and it is a major headache but we are addressing it.
“One other major challenge is that of funding. We have not been able to secure adequate funding from our principals. A lot of things we have to do requires money and that’s why I have made frantic efforts to visit a number of high net worth individuals to appeal to them to support UCH financially and materially so that our services can run and be at par with tertiary health institutions in Europe and North America because it is the dream of this administration to get UCH to a level of great tertiary hospital. And before we can get to the great level, we must have satisfied the requirements of tertiary hospitals which we have not done.
“So what we are doing now is to build the hospital to an optimal status of a tertiary hospital and we move on from that to ascend to a great level.”
Speaking at the commissioning of the newly built cash and carry pharmacy, Otegbayo said the need to generate funds for the hospital prompted his administration to build the pharmacy store.
“There is a need to generate funds for this hospital because funding for teaching hospitals have dwindled over the years,” he said.
Also speaking, the Director of Pharmacy, UCH, Helen Oduntan, stated that the need to improve the hospital’s internally generated revenue and ensure the availability of drugs made the opening of the new pharmacy store an important project.
“We saw the need to improve on our internally generated funds and the drug revolving fund is a viable means of generating funds for the hospital .
“So this unit is now open to maximise our profit, ensure availability of drugs without compromising on the quality of care that we provide for our patients. So patients who come here are expected to pay for their medication.”
Also, as part of the celebration of Otegbayo’s 100 days in office, he also commissioned the UCH Christian Welfare House located within the hospital. He was later at the popular Ogunlesi Hall where he interacted with the staff members.
Packaged by Olayinka Agboola with additional reports from newspeakonline.com
