Surgeon urges govts to make funding priority for hospitals

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Dr Umaru Habila, a fellow of the West African College of Surgeons, has called on the three tiers of government to make funding for hospitals a priority across the country.

Habila, an Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeon, working with the National Hospital, Abuja, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday, in Abuja.

“Government should make funding a priority in all hospitals.

“ Those managing the hospitals should have the goodwill to listen to those specialists, who are the providers at the end of the day.

“They should listen to them and give them what they will work with and make them comfortable.

“Most of the times, some of our colleagues move out of the country not because of the salary per se, but because of the working condition.

“What to work with are inadequate, so if the government can avail us with what to work with, make everybody happy that you are able to practise with what you know.

“Then some of us stay around fully on ground because it is not all about money but also to be happy when you are practising,’’ he said.

Habila, also a consultant on Trauma and Orthopaedic surgery emphasised  the need to fund the hospitals so as to prevent brain drain in the health sector.

The consultant said the country had been losing it best brains in the sector due to lack of job satisfaction.

“Government has to do something to retain them otherwise, we will be losing the best brains to UK, America, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other countries,’’ he said.

Speaking on the experience of managing victims of October 2015 bomb blast, he said the hospital had the expertise to manage disaster victims.

According to him, managing bomb blast victims medically, normally depends on preparedness.

“ National Hospital, which is a Tertiary Health Care that is reckoned with in the country, so it ought to be at the mind of management that it should always prepare.

“There is always reserve of materials and activation system of manpower, when such thing happens virtually every other thing will be suspended to handle mass casualties coming in at the moment.

“Normally, we do rehearse on a regular basis on how to handle such disaster so that everybody in the team knows what to do if such a thing happens.

“ That is the secret of managing disaster, activating the preparedness in the system,’’ he said.

Habila said National Hospital had been handling virtually all forms of trauma surgeries.

NAN reports National Hospital hosts the National Trauma Centre fully equipped with facilities to handle trauma cases.

The centre also has burns unit with fully functional theatre suites and a 12-bedded intensive care unit (ICU) back up and a rehabilitation unit.

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