A Senior Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist with National Hospital Abuja, Dr Maureen Umeakuewulu has assumed office as the new Chief Medical Director of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital (COOUTH) Amaku-Awka, Anambra State.
She succeeded the former Commissioner for Health, Dr Joe Akabuike who served as CMD COOUTH during the first tenure of Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo administration.
Before her appointment, Dr Umeakuewulu served as the Chairman, Medical Women Association of Nigeria, FCT Chapter; President, Association of Catholic Medical & Dental Practitioners of Nigeria, FCT Chapter; Nigerian Ambassador, International Human Papilloma Virus Society and consultant for Federal Ministry of Health.
But in her maiden media chat in Awka as part of several engagements with critical stakeholders, marking her assumption of office, Dr Umeakuewulu applauded Governor Soludo for building a world class Trauma Centre in the area.
She noted that the hospital already installed with state-of-the-art equipment, is set to become a centre of excellence for the handling of trauma patients in the entire Southeast geo political zone.
The new CMD said the Trauma Centre, initiated by the Solution administration, will be a centre for comprehensive care for trauma patients in the entire Igboland, which has been lacking in the region.
“I am sure that in the next few months, the COOUTH trauma centre will become functional. We trust the commitment of the state governor towards the health sector and we believe he will continue to invest the right resources that will engender a turnaround in this hospital,” she said.
She however appealed Governor Soludo to consider building a cancer centre in the tertiary hospital.
“It is regrettable that there is no cancer centre in Anambra State, and our patients have to go to other states to seek medical help. We are looking at opening a cancer centre in the state. It’s quite expensive but we believe that the governor, who is committed to supporting the health sector, will support its actualization.”
Umeakuewulu expressed gratitude to Governor Soludo for appointing her to head the institution, expressed happiness to be back to serve her own people.
On her plan for the COOUTH, the new CMD revealed that her vision for the state teaching hospital is to make it a centre of excellence in various medical fields.
She emphasized that she will target on three projects with particular reference to improving service delivery in the hospital, training and retraining of medical personnel, and strengthening research activities.
“Since I resumed office a week ago, I have been meeting with heads of units and departments, as well as other stakeholders, to getu the first need assessment of the hospital. With these meetings, it is becoming clearer, the situation and what we must begin to do as a leadership.
“On service delivery, we want to computerize the hospital system and do away with issues of manual payments and folders which is the case presently. This, will in turn help, us plug leakages, reduce corruption and unnecessary wasting of patients’ time. We are committed to supporting the hospital personnel to effectively deploy technology to ease processes and shore up our revenue.
“It is our target to activate some units in the hospital that are not functioning maximally, so that in the near future, people from Anambra and even outside Anambra, would be able to seek medical care in this facility.”
The new CMD also revealed plan to establish very active and viable orthopaedic and radiology units and hire enough professionals to man them.
“In the coming years, we will devote serious effort to securing accreditation for residency training in all the departments in the hospital, keying in from where my predecessors stopped,” she said.
On training and retraining of personnel, Dr Umeakuewulu said the teaching hospital will partner with other hospitals internationally and locally, in expertise exchange so as to improve the capacity of its workforce.
According to her, efforts are on to strengthen the telemedicine aspects to service numerous patients that will be needing their services but may not be able to come here due to distance.
The CMD vowed to explore grants opportunities, as well as local and international collaborations to boost medical research in the hospital.
She emphasized the need for high network of Ndi Anambra to collaborate with the hospital towards improving its services to the people.
She said, “We have a very strong base of wealthy Anambra people sparse all over the world, who are well-blessed, and we will be reaching out to them for endowments in terms of equipment, structures, hospital bill payments etc. We want to establish an endowment fund where friends of the hospital and philanthropists can donate towards improving access to healthcare in the hospital.
The new CMD also revealed plans by her administration to open up and strengthen the institution’s satellite to hospitals so that their doctors in family medicine, community medicine and other areas of expertise can move down deeper and offer services to the people at the grassroots.
She also promised to work towards developing a strong referral system whereby the satellite hospitals and other health centers can refer their patients from the communities to the facility and they will be well-taken care of. The rate of maternal mortality in Nigeria is alarming. We need to do a lot to contain the 80% of our women who die during childbirth outside the hospital, especially at the local communities,” she concluded.###
