Posted on: Wed 25-10-2017

RE: ARD OUTBURST AGAINST UNTH MANAGEMENT ON MEDICALWORLDNIGERIA.COM AND IN THE VANGUARD AND PUNCH NEWSPAPERS OF 18TH OCTOBER 2017

The University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, UNTH management is constrained to react to the publications on MedicalworldNigeria.com and in the Daily Vanguard and Punch Newspaper of Wednesday October 18 2017 in which the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) UNTH made startling and embarrassing statements against the management of the hospital

Among other things, the doctors claimed that the UNTH Management was anti doctor and that nothing is working in the hospital. The PUNCH newspaper particularly quoted them as saying that the hospital cannot conduct 'basic health care procedures like x-ray and full blood count test'. Such fallacious statements coming from the resident doctors simply because they were owed one month salary makes any right thinking individual to marvel

In view of the unwarranted mudslinging and heinous name calling directed against the UNTH Management by the ARD, it has become expedient to put facts in their proper perspective so as to debunk their unfortunate campaign of calumny

We recall that before the Residents decided to thread this path of dishonor, management met with their leaders on a number of occasions during which the Chief Medical Director Dr C C Amah explained to them the reasons for the delay in the payment of their September 2017 salary which was not the fault of management. One had expected that the doctors would be reasonably patient following the explanations given. Instead, they acted in a manner which suggested that they had ulterior motives

As the ARD was told, the delay was because of a system upgrade by the GIFMIS Project administrator, under the office of the Accountant General of the Federation. The upgrade required that all the MDAs should do a re-profiling and re-documentation of certain information related to the payment of staff salaries in order to be compliant with the new upgrade. The process took about one week to complete and during the period, the resident doctors were duly informed at every stage of the exercise. Suffice it to say also that UNTH was one of the first MDAs in the country to complete this re-profiling and re-documentation. The Doctors salaries though released by the federal government on the 29th of September 2017 to CBN account of the hospital could not be paid immediately to them because the hospital could not gain access to the GIFMIS Epayment platform through which the payment is expected to be made, until this necessary re-profiling and re-documentation was achieved. There was also slight delay in the computation of the doctor’s salaries because the people handling this aspect belonged to JOHESU Trade union which was on national strike during the period. As soon as they resumed from the strike on the 5th of October, UNTH Accounts department worked expeditiously to conclude and upload the salaries having complied with the new GIFMIS system upgrade. The doctors were aware of all these and were granted access to all the information they needed on the matter during the period. What then was their problem, you may ask?

It should be observed at this juncture that contrary to their misleading impression the present UNTH Management led by the dynamic chief medical director Dr Christopher Amah has recorded several feats which make the hospital stand out amongst her contemporaries. For instance, under Dr Amah's administration, the hospital assumed her rightful position as the center of excellence for cardiothoracic surgery in Nigeria and Africa. Open heart surgery is today a routine in the hospital and the number of such surgeries so far performed in UNTH since 2013 when Dr Amah resuscitated the programme surpasses all the open heart surgeries done in Nigeria put together. This has no doubt helped to reverse the trend of medical tourism in the country as some international organizations like cardiostart USA, voom foundation USA, Save-a-heart foundation united kingdom and pobic open heart International Italy, now prefer to collaborate with UNTH to perform open heart surgeries on their Nigerian patients using the hospitals state of the art cardiac center

Perhaps, it should be mentioned also that the UNTH is the only health institution in the country right now which has functioning Radiotherapy equipment for the treatment of cancer. This equipment, which had been grounded since 2014 was resuscitated and put into use by the present UNTH management led by Dr Amah.

This has helped to alleviate the problems encountered by the cancer patients who had to search helplessly for where to benefit from Radiotherapy treatment to no avail. These two examples alone make the difference when UNTH is compared with other teaching hospitals in the country. Suffice it to say that the present management’s achievements permeated through virtually all facets of hospital services. How then could any sane person ever insinuate that the hospital is not working?

Management hopes that now that the doctors September’s salaries in question have been paid, the Resident doctors can have their rest. However, it still beats managements imagination that a mere delay in the payment of one month salary could trigger such a chain reaction and unjustifiable blackmail of the management by a group whose members aspire to leadership of the health sector

Signed: UNTH Managment

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