Hope Uzodimma, governor of Imo State, has decried the deplorable state of all the units and departments of the Imo State University Teaching Hospital (IMSUTH), Orlu and the entire health sector of the state.
The governor was moved to tears after listening to the damning report of the Visitation Panel on Imo State University Teaching Hospital, Orlu, which was submitted to him on at the Sam Mbakwe Executive Council Chambers, saying that “IMSUTH is sick”.
Receiving the report from the Chairman of the Visitation Panel, Frank Akpuaka, a professor, Governor Uzodimma thanked the members for a job well done, noting that the recommendation would help in improving the stomach-turning condition of the Imo State health sector.
“If IMSUTH is sick, then the entire Health system of Imo State is sick”, he said.
Uzodimma said that all critical sectors of the state were sick, ranging from the Civil Service, power sector and several other sectors, a situation he described as ‘bleeding’ but commended the Visitation Panel for identifying all the critical areas that government needed to look into and assured that the report would be used as a working document.
He noted that IMSUTH is an institution that had been positioned to be self-sustaining and to provide effective healthcare services to the entire state and beyond, if properly managed, especially in the area of drug procurement for the people.
He promised to change the ugly narrative in the financial statements of the hospital by making sure that all financial leakages would be plugged by streamlining IMSUTH into the Treasury Single Account (TSA) system already in operation by his administration.
The governor also regretted the non-accreditation of the College of Medicine since inception which he attributed to negligence by the past school administrations and past governments, saying that it would no longer be business as usual for contractors and individuals who take advantage of the administrative lapses in the institution to set back the wheel of progress of the hospital.
Presenting the report, the Chairman of the Visitation Panel, Akpuaka listed a litany of problems besieging the institution to include: poor roads, poor funding, infrastructural decay, inability to retain staff, and loss of accreditation by the National Universities Commission (NUC), which has resulted in non-admission of medical students for the past four years.
Others include low patronage of hospital services, maladministration, and deficiency in management where he alleged that the chief medical director (CMD) worked as a sole administrator, among others,
The report also noted that the Nursing Unit was nothing to write home about, the works department leaves much to be desired, the surgical and laboratory units were in very bad shape as well as the intensive care units (ICTs).
