By Isreal Adamu,
Jos Managing Director of the National Orthopedic Hospital, Jos Prof. Iche Onche, on Monday said the healthcare facility has commence full operations. Addressing newsmen at his office in Jos , the MD added that the mission of the healthcare facility is to build generations of mobile healthy and functional population in every increasing musculoskeletal challenges.
Onche added that clinical for outpatients would commence on Tuesday.
The National Orthopaedic Hospital, Jos, is one of three hospitals signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari in the final days of his administration.
We have similar hospitals in Benin and Jalingo, these were established to ensure equitable geographical spread, especially in regions that didn’t have such specialised health institutions
According to him This journey has not been easy it’s been very difficult. And as you know, the country is going through tough financial times.
Funds are limited. But we’ve tried to use the resources available to us as efficiently as possible, to get this place functional.
This facility was the old JUTH satellite site. It was abandoned for 14 years. By 2023, it had been deserted for 13 years.
The structures were dilapidated, roofs gone, ceilings collapsed.
“We had to renovate everything from scratch. We re-roofed buildings, fixed ceilings, and carried out full-scale renovations.
There’s still so much to do, and a lot is ongoing. And if you ask me what the greatest challenge is, I’ll tell you plainly funding. It’s been tough. We received an intervention fund from the former Deputy Speaker to begin renovations, but we’re still owing money from the commissioning.
Thankfully, we’ve made provisions for this in our budget proposal for this year.
We pray that the hospital will be fully funded so we can start delivering on the core mandate we are meant to render here.
This institution is purely orthopaedic. Orthopaedics deals with the bones, muscles, tendons, and related structure,the mechanics of movement. That’s our job.
So, for example, we are not equipped to treat conditions like pregnancy we don’t handle that.
We’re not trained or set up to treat malaria, typhoid, diarrhea, hypertension, diabetes, or cough. These are outside our mandate.
Such cases should go to primary healthcare centres, general hospitals, or tertiary institutions like JUTH.
Our core focus is clear: treating fractures, trauma from accidents, hip and joint problems—anything related to movement.
Our aim is to restore mobility. That’s our function: to help you move again. We want to make our people functional.
We are seeing a trend where our population is ageing, and our life expectancy is declining. So, in the days to come, we hope to perform all the sophisticated procedures known in the field.
I want to assure you that with the team we have built, a lot of the money people spend travelling abroad for treatment will stay here.
We have the capacity to perform hip replacements, shoulder and knee replacements, and fix any fracture. That is our core mandate. And by the grace of God, when we are fully operational, nobody should need to travel abroad and fund treatment themselves—we can do it all here.
We’ve also been fortunate to have a very cooperative host community.
He also said “let me. clarify this is a regional hospital, It is meant to serve Plateau State, Benue State Nasarawa, Kogi, Kwara, and Niger States, we are lucky to have the hospital located here in Plateau state “
” I want to thank our President, His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, for appointing me as the Executive Medical Director of this institution as well as the Governor of Plateau State, His Excellency, Barrister Caleb Mutfwang, who has been a tremendous pillar of support.”
Onche also added that ” I also want to acknowledge the former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Ahmed Idris Wase, whose initiative this was. “
He began the process and got the bill passed and signed by President Buhari on July 21, 2021.
