I’ll give all my heart & soul for things to work in UUTH -New CMD, Dr Emem-Abasi Bassey

There was palpable excitement in the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital on Monday October8, 2018 when when Dr Emem-Abasi Bassey assumed duty as new Chief Medical Director.

Moments after taking over as CMD, Dr Bassey who has been working in the hospital for the past 14 years and is the first CMD of UUTH to emerge from the establishment sat down for a chat with NEWS LINK Editor, Udeme Inyang. He stated his plans and vision for the hospital promising to give his all for the UUTH to regain its lost glory.

Excerpts…

How do you feel about your arrival into your new office which was accompanied by celebration?

I was pleasantly surprise. My plan was to sneak into this place. But that could not be. When I arrived, I saw my members of staff waiting for my arrival. Why did that happen? People were tired of the vacuum. People are happy that a substantive CMD has been appointed. There is relatively nothing tangible an Acting CMD can do. You know it is only one person that can sit on this seat at a time and by the grace of God, I am that person sitting now.

When I came in this morning, what I saw was spontaneous. Yes, there are certain people that will want to identify in the moment but what I saw there was very spontaneous.

It assures me that members of my staff are in support of my administration. That behooves on me the responsibility that I have to justify that confidence by doing the right thing. I am a Rotarian and I ensure I do things properly. I have to ensure I uphold the tenets of this establishment, by ensuring that there is fairness and by ensuring that I take very seriously the welfare of my staff.

Yes, the most popular Chief Executive may not always be the most effective. So, for me, in whatever I do, the popular things have to be balanced. I will ensure that there is discipline in the health care institution even much more than the normal Ministry. The normal Ministry can make mistakes but we cannot afford to make mistakes here. What I want to do is talk with my staff. We are going to reason together. Even the Bible says: come lets reason together. We will reason on how to build a hospital that we can be proud of. The hospital is not only the building. The hospital is staff, equipments and the kind of service delivery offered. Let’s build an institution that they can be proud of as members of staff. Whether you like it or not, this is still the only tertiary hospital in Akwa Ibom State. Yes, without prejudice to the Ibom Specialist Hospital which we all know is not really running. It is not what we thought it should have been but I pray the State government find credible and good partners that will come and take over it again. So, this is where people come when they want specialized health care in the State. So we have to rise up to that task. I am just taking over. During the course of the next few days and weeks, what we will be doing most is talking. We will be talking with the most junior staff to the most senior staff. I will try to ensure they operate within set rules. I will keep open doors.  That will not be door for gossips. But channels where staff can get their voice heard and certain issues can be addressed. You may be surprise that certain sound ideas may not even come from the management but a junior staff. So when you have such ideas, you create an avenue to ensure your voice can be heard and hopefully we can restore University of Uyo Specialist hospital to its lost glory.

You are the first CMD that is selected from the hospital thus suggesting you have ideas about the challenges of this hospital. So what do you think is really lacking in this hospital?

I have been in this hospital for 14 years. Off and on by going to sabbatical and returning. When I was Commissioner for Health in the State, I was still coming here to run affairs, after sometimes, the office pressure became much and I had to stop. So, for 14 years, I know the hospital very well and its challenges. This hospital started in 1996. Then it was called Sani Abacha Hospital. I once had the privilege of serving in the top management cadre for three years. But knowing the problems of the hospital does not give you the magic wand to solve all the problems. I am not claiming that I am coming to fix all the problems.  All I am saying is that I am willing to try. I am going to give all my heart and soul for things to work in this hospital. But then, I am not doing it alone. It is going to be a collective task. So, this still revolve around the attitude of staff. They use to say one bad leaven spoils the whole loaf of bread. So if majority of the staff cannot share in my vision, no matter how intelligent and ready I am, that vision will fail.

Now, what are the problems we have? The major problem is that we have outgrown our space. This is because if members of the staff do not have comfortable offices to work, it affects productivity. So we need drastic and impacting infrastructures. We have about four major buildings that if completed will change the landscape of this place to compete with any other Teaching Hospital in the country. So, it is my sincere desire to complete these uncompleted buildings during my tenure and probably embark on new ones. Why am I saying this? We have a 500 bed capacity and they are most times filled. So that means we have to consider new wards. Then, we talk about equipment. When you buy an equipment, in three or five years time, it depreciates. So we have a lot of equipment which do not meet the services. And we need a lot of manpower. I know a lot of consultants we have but many of them are always travelling. Let me use myself as an example. As a gynaecologist, In 2007, I was in a fellowship. I went to Egypt and United Kingdom and had training. When I came back, I did not see the equipments that I should use. In 2009, I went to South Africa, trained and return but there was still no equipment to work. Now if you ask me if I can still do those things, I probably could not because if I had come back and see those equipments to work with, by now, I would have been very highly skilled. So we have to bring in modern equipment to work with because we have people who really have trained and can use them. That again will be a priority.

Then, we have to talk about emergency services. We need to ensure that when lives are lost unnecessarily, you have to explain it. The difference sometimes between life and death could be just 30 minutes.  Most of the death we have in the medical field are not because those people were destined to die. So, we really need to tackle this so that when serious cases are rushed in, we can do something about it. That will need support not just from the Federal Government but State Government. So, I am using this medium to appeal to the State government. The people that come to this hospital, 95 per cent are Akwa Ibom people. Health or emergency service does not know a political party. So, I am begging the State government to assist. While we are waiting for the federal government or budgetary proposals to be released, the State government should please come into the gap. I had the privilege of knowing the State Governor previously  having worked with him in the State Exco, knowing that he is a man of compassion who cares for Akwa Ibom people. So, what I am speaking now is not politics but I am making a passionate appeal  because I am aware that in the last few years, the partnership between the State Government and this hospital has broken down. I know when I was then serving as the Commissioner for Health, I use to meet the Governor and tell him the challenges the hospital is facing and that he should release a little fund to help. All Akwa Ibomites, irrespective of party affiliation need to support this hospital. Tomorrow during your political campaign you may have an accident. Before they could look for an air ambulance and fly you out, something might happen.

Recently, National Association of Medical and Dental Professionals issued a 21 days warning that they will embark on strike. Does that affect your hospital?

No, it doesn’t affect us. Those ones are State Government. What we have here are the Medical and Dental Consultants and Association of Resident Doctors. So, it doesn’t affect us. But let me not shy aware from begging government to dialogue with them and also beg my colleagues to also realize that this is a Miinistry. Yes, there are certain climes where doctors are that highly paid. But that salary does not come like that. Those salaries are performance driven. If you see the way these doctors work, sometimes for 72 hours they don’t go home. But then again, that hospital has given them a comfortable place to stay and  they are been treated well. So, before we demand that from our doctors, we need to create that enabling environment for them. For them to stay 72 hours without going home, it means you have to give them a comfortable place to stay. I just want to ask government to look into the grouse of the doctors.  If they go on strike, it means the load will be on us. It means we will be totally overwhelmed and people will now say Teaching Hospital is bad. No, we are not bad, the fact is that we are overwhelmed.

What really is your vision?

I have the privilege of not just being a medical doctor but a health administrator.  I have done Health System Management both here and outside Nigeria. When we talk about the health system, we have to realize the health system is made up of different building blocks. It is impossible to intervene in one and leave the other and expect positive result. Let me tell  you what happens in Nigeria. It won’t be because of infrastructural need I now come and build two, three floors of building. I have forgotten that that block built needs staff, equipment, the staff need training. So what am I going to do? I am going to try what we call system levels intervention. This will cut across multiple building blocks. So while thinking of how to complete a building, I have to also think about staff recruitment, new equipment and training of existing manpower. We also have to think about finance and staff welfare. So for me, it is about looking at those interventions that can cut across multiple blocks. Then again, it involves us in the whole management working as a team. And the members of staff have to understand. At least, give us a period of time, that is latitude to enable us do the right thing.