..To also reduce patients time wasting
By Ujah Simon, kaduna
National Eye Centre kaduna has continuously raised standard for effective medical practice within its catchment areas and beyond, giving hope to Nigerians with sight challenges which undoubtly place the centre within it core mandate to prevent, cure and rehabilitate eye care services.
This feature by our Kaduna correspondent, Ujah Simon, tend to recap the landmarks of the current management team of the hospital, lead by Dr. Mahmoud Alhassan in his first tenure and the blueprint for the next 4years. AN overview of the past four years of stewardship witnessed great strides and remarkable additions in terms of patient attendance, sub-specialty manpower development, provision of comprehensive investigative and therapeutic ophthalmic equipment.This also could be seeing in the upgrade of the medical laboratory complex, complete renovation of the hospital building along with sewage treatment plant, renewable power supply, and water supply, which have led to improved service delivery to Nigerians from all strata of life needing eye health care.
In Hospital attendance, within the past 5years, the Hospital has attended to an average of 39,261 patients per year, mainly Nigerians from various walks of life. This is different from ithe various community outreach programmes which takes the centres eye care services to the door steps of indigent Nigerians in partnership with Non-governmental organisations, Local Government leadership and public spirited individuals. Most often times, this exercise are conducted with little or no cost to the patients. Coming to the area of infrastructural development, the Centre has witnessed tremendous improvement over the years from November 2015 to date. Amongst the capital Projects undertaken by the present Leadership are as listed, among others includingcompletion of 50 Rooms patient relations transit Camp, rehabilitation of dilapidated walk ways, concrete pavements and roofing.
Others are rehabilitation of abandoned centralized sewage treatment plant, building and structural rehabilitation work at administrative building i.e (Block A), including upgrading of plumbing and Sanitary fixtures and also the upgrading of the building façade.
Building and structural rehabilitation work at all specialized Clinics i.e (Block B), including upgrading of plumbing and Sanitary fixtures, retrofitting of Electrical fitting, are parts of the development.
Indeed, complete rehabilitation of the Primary Care Clinics (PCC), patients wards (Block E and C) , including upgrade of all sanitary fixtures, plumbing fixtures, electrical fittings and building envelop maintenance, are not left out.
Comprehensive rehabilitation work at Block (F) which houses the main theatre (housing 6 nos independent theatre suites), and also the Community Ophthalmology, residency training and refraction Units, as well asprocurement of utility vehicles for hospital logistics i.e Hilux, Hyundai Elentra, Toyota Corolla, carried out.
During the period under review, water and electricity for clinical and other uses have improved significantly especially with the drilling of additional boreholes and increased investment in maintenance of facilities.
The management has also commenced a phased upgrade of the substations and power control equipments to ensure adequate and uninterrupted power supply to the hospital complex, respectively.
Accordingly, in sub-specialty manpower development, the hospital, in the last four years provided state-of-the art facilities and conducive work environment to provide special ophthalmic services for patients in need of them. The paucity of such care in the past had led to exodus of Nigerians out of the country to access the services in developed countries of Europe, America and Asia (medical tourism).
For instance, a number of patients had to commit huge amount of resources to travel out in order to have cornea transplant or vitreo-retinal surgeries which the hospital now offers. Therefore, its pertinent should note that “our effort in human capital development has started yielding results though the complexity in accessing corneal tissue for transplant, is still work in progress.
The knowledge of pivotal of human development as instrument for institutional transformation was the major driving force behind our investment in training of subspecialists in the hospital.
There is more than 100 percent improvement on sub-specialized manpower. The subspecialists were largely trained in various world – class institutions of India and Bangladesh. The training was also supported by CommonWealth Eye Health Consortium (CEHC); an intervention programme of Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust Fund. The overall idea and aspiration of the human capital development is to make our institution a training ground for subspecialists in the country and to also help curb the gale of medical tourism bedevilling our health and economic sector.Also In area of Electronic Medical Records (EMR), “this Management has also been able to start Electronic Medical Records (EMR) which is the practice globally.
Medical equipment procured within the past four years, could be seen in the equipping of sub-Specialty Clinics, Procurement of ALCON Posterior Vitrectomy Machine accessories, purchase of a set of Optical Machine, computer software acquisitions and procurement of various project vehicles.Others include computerization of critical areas in the Hospital, construction and establishment of cornea bank, supply of 2 nos Anaesthesia Machine, construction and Equipping of Artificial Eye production lab, as well as Supply of Anterior Segment /Cornea assessment equipment respectively.
Computer software Acquisition, purchase of Medical equipment – OCTA Machine and SL Bio- Microscope Monitors, Supply of IRIDEX Micro Pulse LASER Machine, 1 Unit EZ %%)) B-SCAN with UBM option Sonomed USA, accessories for B-SCAN, are added. It also include 14 nos Ophthalmoscope Keeler UK, 1 no Binocular indirect ophthalmoscope (Wireless), 2 no Lens+60D, 78D, 2 no Cataract set, 1 no Diathermy machine, 1 unit Refractor Keratomater, 2 no B-Scan Machine probes EZ scan AB 5500 (USA), 1 no Cautery Machine respectively.p
Also procured are Index Laser Diode photo coagular system Japan Firbre Optic cable, Anterior vitrectomy Machine (Germany)probe, 1 no. Ultra low Temperature Chest Freezer,1 no. laboratory Refrigerator, Corneal Transplant set, Auto-keratometer, Iridek Micro Pulse Laser Machine, A & B Scan Machine, Scanoptic Microscope eye Piece, Sonomed “A’’ Probe Scan, Topcon A/T Table Plus Top, Topcon OCTA Machine and Slit Lamps Bio-microscope.
Semi Automated Chemistry analyser, 10x Adjustable Eye Piece, 1 no Inverter 7.5 KVA Pure Sine Waves 200 Ah Batteries, Installation of inverter with 10 Batteries Racks, Cables and other Connector, Amos procured.
Satellite Stations (Community Outreach):: in order to vigorously take eye care to doorsteps of rural dwellers especially women and children, the hospital sought the collaboration of Kaduna State Government to establish a satellite station in General hospital Turunku in Igabi Local Government Area of the state through an initiative called NEC Community Eye Care Programme (NECCEP) where the hospital provides technical and logistic support to allow patients to access cheap, yet qualitative eye care in their enclave. The programme has since been a success story and many people regained their sights through the initiative.
Other Community Outreaches carried out Within the period include: Medical Outreach Services, MOS, in Kaduna Zone one Senatorial District (Makarifi & Giwa), Medical outreach services in Kaduna metropolis, zone two, Kaduna town, Medical outreach services in Kafanchan and medical outreach services in Kagoro Town, all in zone three.
On International collaboration and Linkages, the hospital had attempted to collaborate with individuals and institutions outside the country for mutual benefit to involved parties. Consequently, there had been in-house training of clinical staff by foreign mentors who volunteered to come to our institution. We had Vitreo retinal training by Dr. Ihab Sa’ad Othman, an Egyptian Vitreo retinal Surgeon of international refute and another Vitreoretinal surgeon from Ethopia ,Dr .Dereje Negussie Woyessa. The Dr. Mahmood Alhassan led management will kick the ball rolling by reclaiming Government land taken up by land grabbers, as part of it blueprints. The need for adequate number of highly skilled Ophthalmologists and Ophthalmic nurses need not be over emphasized. This, including the fact that the Hospital is the Apex training Institution for eye care in Nigeria makes the need for a post graduate Medical school imperative. The School will expectedly continue to address the herculean task of continuously training Ophthalmologists known in everyday parlance as eye doctors to meet the demand of rising number of Nigerians who yearn for eye care service.
The management will institute interventions and programmes to reduce patient waiting time, which is best indicator of promptness of service delivery, through Increase Hospital attendance. This will be achieved while maintaining good quality service delivery to all. We hope to grow the patient attendance by 30% annually in the next 4 years. Implementation of strategies to achieve universal coverage of health will definitely also lead to higher patient load at our facilities.
In ensuring more community services, with the conclusion of the pilot rural outreach at Igabi LGA, the NEC will seek further collaboration with the Kaduna state government to implement the programme in other LGAs in Kaduna. All other community-based service delivery activities will further be strengthened to offer high quality services.
in terms of training and retraining of Staff, the ongoing training programmes will be expanded while seeking collaboration with many other renowned training centers across the globe. All the core specialists areas including the paramedics will be properly trained. The National Eye Centre, Kaduna will become the hub for training of all cadres of eye health workers in the country and beyond. More Machinery: with high ‘flux’ and ‘turnover rate’ of ophthalmic technology, “there will be renewed zeal to update our ophthalmic equipment to meet up with international standard. With good planning and proper advocacy, this is achievable.
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