By Sam Kayode
Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) Professor Ahmed Ahidjo has called on colleagues in the medical sector to step up their level of excellence to stem the tide of medical tourism affecting the country.
Ahidjo who was the guest speaker during a recent dinner in honour of Professor Ibrahim Wakawa, the former CMD of the Federal Neuro Psychiatrist Hospital (FNPH) Maiduguri, argued that it is only the excellence Nigerian physicians are known abroad for that can decrease the crave for residents to resist medical tourism which is on the rise in the country.
He noted that when excellence is stamped in all facets of the medical sector, the needed growth will be achieved and a lot of people who are not satisfied with the sector will begin to have a rethink and do their treatments in Nigeria.
Ahidjo commended Professor Wakawa for a job well done adding that “he has really done well by transforming the hospital from where he met it to where it is right now.”
“Professor Wakawa is a former member of the executive of the ‘Committee of CMDS’ who believed so much in professionalism while he was there so I am not surprised that he rose to such a high height in his career ” Said Ahidjo.
The CMD called on colleagues to do their best at all times so that only the best could be mirrored out as their personal optics when people begin to look for the good or bad outputs of professionals at times like these adding that it is however not always necessary to look out for the bad side of people when striving for excellence.
Ahidjo equally commended the 72 CMDs for daring to come to Maiduguri in spite of all the fears and myths associated with the state due to the lingering insurgency war that is affecting social life.
UMTH he maintained is privileged to have them in town for the 110th session they came for adding that he is grateful for having them in Maiduguri at a time like this.
Reeling out the achievements of the CMD, he said that Wakawa has face-lifted the entire hospital from how he met it to a very special place devoid of the usual inhibitions and stigma associated with mental hospitals nationwide.
” He not only stopped at infrastructure, he has been able to produce more than ten consultants and four Phd nurses during his tenure as CMD. About two other psychologists are doing their PhD’s as at the time he is completing his tenure”.
Also pouring encomium on Wakawa, the Secretary to the state government, Alhaji Bukar Tijani commended Wakawa for his achievements in the FNPH.
He assured the committee that the state is relatively peaceful for now adding that whatever hospitality that has been meted out to them during the visit is the typical “Borno hospitality” which is the true hallmark of the residents of the state.
Responding, the former CMD FNPH Professor Wakawa thanked colleagues for lining up to celebrate the end of his tenure at the dinner held at the new Bola Tinubu IT complex in the UMTH.
He gave credence to Professor Ahmed Ahidjo for guiding him throughout the nine years he spent as CMD rectifying many issues at the FNPH in Maiduguri.
He however warned that rectifiers like him are most times seen as committing wrongs against the status quo adding that there are so many challenges in the medical sector which needs fixing if one has the determination and guts to fix it.
” Its regrettable that that is the way the system works. They are always waiting to resist the standard practice which we all know thereby distorting the difference between wrong and right as we all know it to be.
Professor Ibrahim Wakawa a consultant psychiatrist and lecturer at the University of Maiduguri was the Chief Medical Director of the FNPH in Maiduguri before completing his two terms as CMD recently.
He is a consultant psychiatrist and a lecturer in Psychiatry at the University of Maiduguri, with research interests in HIV psychiatry, psychopharmacology, and epilepsy.
