Day UMTH Celebrates 40 Years Anniversary

Day UMTH Celebrates 40 Years Anniversary

By: James Bwala

July 23, 2023 When history is written about the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital and the men who made it happen, this day will be remembered as a historical landmark. The Chief Medical Director of this illustrious institution, Professor Ahmed Ahidjo, has shown himself to be a brave and obedient leader by being able to guide a management team that will serve as examples for many years after they may have left the service. One could say that the Ahidjo team set out on a quest to reimagine the UMTH. This tremendous accomplishment may yet be accomplished when duty and courage are put to use. It’s safe to argue that this describes Professor Ahmed Ahidjo and his administrative staff at the UMTH.

Media outlets have been lauding the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital’s infrastructural revolution for a while now. Numerous articles and stories that highlight these accomplishments under the Professor of Interventional Radiology have been supported by ‘The Media’. With the help of its management team, NEWSng visited various units and departments for days in order to take pictures and gather documentation of the advancements that have transformed the facility from a subpar hospital to a symbol of Western and Sub-Saharan pride.

The convergence of this development was to transform UMTH into the biggest health facility with the largest number of hospital beds in Nigeria and, by extension, West Africa. The UMTH has some 600 beds, and according to the CMD, by the end of the first phase of infrastructural development, the management team plans to add more bed space, which they are currently able to achieve, putting the total number of beds in the hospital at over 1200. That is a record above the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, which presently has close to 1000 beds.

The UMTH weathered the storms during, at the height of, and after crises of insurgency in Borno State. These include architectural edifices: the new Trauma Center, the Burns Center, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) General Out-patient Building, the Child Institute, the Cancer Center, and the Physical Rehabilitation Center Buildings, respectively. Driving around the hospital complex was through the internal road construction, some 2.7 kilometers, being executed directly, at no cost to the hospital, by the Federal Ministry of Works; this is the first time internal roads have been constructed since the hospital was commissioned by the 2nd Republic President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, in July 1983. That was 40 years ago.

In addition to the aforementioned building projects, four freshly built aquifer bore holes and five 500 kVA electrical diesel generators connected to the water treatment facility were evaluated on-site. The endeavor to maintain a 24-hour power supply to the hospital’s critical facilities, including the operating room, kidney center, intensive care unit (ICU), oxygen generating plant, high dependency unit, accident and emergency department, radiology center, and mortuary, includes the use of additional modern generators.

These are excellent results for the management team led by Prof. Ahidjo. It is in fact evidence of a careful hiring procedure by the Hadi Okashatu-led Board of UMTH, which resulted in Professor Ahmed Ahidjo’s appointment as CMD of UMTH in August 2018.

Many people are still perplexed as to how the CMD was able to raise the money for these hospital projects despite the fact that they far exceeded the hospital’s budgetary allotments for capital projects. Regarding this, Professor Ahidjo frequently referred to “the power of advocacy at higher levels,”  a case that had a larger picture for each goal he imagined for the successful steps he is taking to make the UMTH the greatest and one of the world’s leading centers of excellence.

The four-story mega-trauma center building is an exception to the usual: an advocacy-yielding, specially funded edifice that is completed and in commission. This edifice has multiple operating theaters for immediate surgical intervention in trauma cases; radiology suites for ultrasound, X-ray, CT scan, etc.; patient wards; consulting rooms; and a mini-laboratory. To top it all off, a secure helipad segment is located on the roof where a patient-transporting helicopter may land. An adjacent elevator will then take trauma patients to the lower floors for further transfer to the theaters and wards. The trauma center is envisioned as a “hospital within a hospital,” offering all the services needed for treating trauma patients efficiently in one location. The new trauma complex increases the hospital’s bed capacity by 150.

The burn center, on which NEWSNG just reported, is a North East Commission-sponsored initiative. It is situated right next to the trauma center and is designed specifically to care for burn patients. It has a contemporary operating room and various ancillaries for plastic surgery and related burn therapy. This center will increase the number of hospital beds by up to 70.

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Approximately 22,000 people who are registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) receive their medical care at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital. The notion of a distinct GOPD for NHIS patients was born because of the necessity of such a large enrollment (and continuing growth) and the pressure it places on the current general outpatient department (GOPD). This GOPD would allow the hospital to provide services to this patient group more quickly. The three-story structure’s numerous consulting rooms, adjacent lounges, and observatories undoubtedly take some of the pressure off the GOPD department’s “main” division.

The Institute of Child Health building is a massive three-story structure housing everything about child health: consulting rooms, children’s wards, a neonatal section, consultant offices, a lecture room, a residents’ lounge, research laboratories, etc. It was commissioned by the Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, who was represented by the President’s health adviser, Dr. Salma Anas Kolo. The decision to increase the hospital’s pediatric bed capacity from 64 beds (the same as when the facility was first opened) to 150 beds is a brave one. The project is now complete and named after the immediate past Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, for her support in establishing the center.

The N1.3 billion physical rehabilitation center being built and equipped by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume’s support project is situated in the hospital’s physiotherapy department. It expanded the physiotherapy, physical rehabilitation, and occupational therapy capacities of the teaching hospital tremendously. It also adds a whopping 100 beds to the hospital’s bed pool.

The Stroke Center, constructed for contemporary management of stroke patients from the primary phase of care to the tertiary phase of stroke and related disease care, is another example of the UMTH’s tremendous advances. When finished, the stroke center would increase the hospital’s capacity by 150 beds. The resurrected Kidney Center and the Drug Rehabilitation Center made additional positive contributions to the hospital’s expansion project, adding 100 and 70 beds, respectively, to the hospital’s bed pool, bringing the total to over 1,200 beds, or more than a 100% increase in capacity.

These and many other coordinated integrated hospital patient capacity expansion projects, ongoing at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital under Prof. Ahidjo-led management, clearly call for celebration, and the 40th anniversary, which was held in July 2023, goes along way to speak on the achievements under the Zannah Burshema of Borno. Indeed, this day has gone into history with Professor Ahmed Ahidjo’s name written as a man of courage and duty.

Day UMTH Celebrates 40 Years Anniversary