FMC Umuahia Ripe to Become Teaching Hospital, Says MD

FMC Umuahia Ripe to Become Teaching Hospital, Says MD

 Dr. Abali

By Emmanuel Ugwu
With the expansion undergone in terms of medical facilities and availability of highly skilled personnel, the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Umuahia is ripe to be upgraded to a teaching hospital, the medical director (MD), Dr Chuku Abali had said.

Speaking with journalists on the progress so far recorded and the future plans for the institution, the MD said the FMC which sits on a 77 hectare in the capital city can comfortably be converted into a teaching hospital. This, he hoped would be realized if Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike (MOUAU) eventually gets the nod to run medical programmes, as planned.

“FMC is long overdue to become a teaching hospital,” he asserted, adding that with the level of excellence it has attained, if more public hospitals could be upgraded to create pockets of excellence” across the country it would curtail the craze for medical tourism by Nigerians,” he explained.

He stated that the FMC has continued to expand its services with building of new wards of 88 beds to increase the existing bed spaces from 287 to 375, while the provision of advanced diagnostic centre and other modern medical equipment would be completed next year.

Dr Abali said that the advanced diagnostic centre was being funded by the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and would involve installing of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine to compliment the CT scanner already in use.

“We plan to deepen our services to make FMC Umuahia stand out as the best medical facilities in the South East and South South,” he said, adding, “We feel that improving our services will attract people from far and near”.

According to him, the FMC Umuahia was selected for the South East zone in the intervention by the NSIA, while the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) was chosen from the South West and Aminu Kano hospital for the North.

“This FMC has deepened services in internal medicine, while the dialysis centre is undergoing expansion with addition of two dialysis machine to make it six and eventually reach the target of 10, while it also boasts of purpose-built In-Vitro Fertilisation laboratory, which is ranked among the best in the country,” he stated.

To further improve services, Dr Abali said that management has adopted the use of social media (WhatsAPP) platform to transmit scan results to doctors, thereby giving the 76 full time consultants, including three neurosurgeons at the FMC Umuahia opportunity to give their best in treating patients.
He said that he developed the passion to turn FMC Umuahia into a medical haven when he was undergoing five months medical care in the United Kingdom, following an assassination attempt in October 2011 when armed men shot him.

“I promised God that I will replicate the medical facilities I saw there (UK),” he said, adding “If we get all that we ask for, there is really no limit to what we can go in providing world class medical care at FMC Umuahia,” the MD explained.

 http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/fmc-umuahia-ripe-to-become-teaching-hospital-says-md/229416/