Nigeria: LAUTECH hospital, second best in medicine in West Africa

Who picks their bills? The hospital foots such bills. The money is from the hospital’s internally generated revenue from such things as the oxygen plant, the drug production unit, and the high influx of patients to the hospital.
How pocket-friendly are treatments offered at this hospital? The cost of care at the hospital is moderate and far cheaper than what obtains in many teaching hospitals in the country.
At your drug production unit, what drugs are produced? We produce drugs such as vitamin C and paracetamol syrups currently. We intend before the end of the year to start producing tablets and capsules. These had impacted positively on patient care, since we are sure of the quality of the drugs they are taken.
What other programmes are in the pipeline to ensure the smooth running of services? Very soon, the hospital services such as medical records, including the wards will be computerised.  All the clinics, including the pathology unit are also to be computerised. Work on actualising this has reached an advanced stage. At the moment, training is ongoing to ensure its smooth take off. Within the next few months, you will not see people carrying patient information folders up and down any more. Mind you, with the computerisation of our records, exchange of medical test results for expert’s opinion and improved patient care, will be enhanced.
But some people are not receptive to changes. What will be done to ensure everybody is carried along? By training and retraining, such a challenge will be surmounted. Of course, some of this training will be taken into consideration for the promotion of all beneficiaries at the appointed time. When people know that some of these things are linked to their promotion, they will be forced to join the moving train. Mind you, we are not sacking anybody.  People only need to align with the modern way of doing things so that we will not be found wanting. This will also help us to keep a permanent record, not like those in paper form that some are already half torn.
What are the checks and balances to prevent unauthorised people accessing the hospital’s data bank? We going to have checks and balances. For example, the Chief Medical Director will be the only person to have access to information at the highest level.   A person in community medicine department will only be able to access data about patients in that department.
The hospital now has an amenity ward, which is totally different from the other wards. What led to the establishment of these wards? Some patients will prefer such a facility. We believe that it is not everybody that will love an open ward. Also, it is only physically sick persons that should come to the hospital. Somebody that is stressed up can also come to the hospital for relaxation.
Stress is a kind of sickness. It is not until somebody develops hypertension or stroke that you say a person is sick. When you are stressed up, you can come to the hospital, and that is one of the reasons why we made the amenity ward to be of standard.  You can come to our amenity ward to rest.  Facilities like this are necessary nowadays in our hospitals, where people pass through a lot of stress or require some level of privacy.
If you are in the amenity ward, people are available to attend to your needs. You will also be attended to privately by our doctors in the ward, without stepping out to the normal clinic area. The time of consultation can also be determined by the patient, unlike in the normal clinics.
The hospital’s service monitoring unit, how has that been helpful in the delivery of services? This unit gets feedbacks from patients, whether they are satisfied with the services we offered, and if there is any problem, they let us know. They also guide patients by giving information.  Aside being stationed at the accident and emergency unit, the personnel also move around the hospital.
Is it true that patients at the obstetrics and gynaecology department are given their medical consultants’ phone numbers to call if in distress? Is it the case with all units in the hospital? Yes, this is the practice that has been on for sometime in all the units in the hospital. In paediatrics, the mothers are given the phone numbers of their children’s doctors, for example, to engender close relationship between them and our doctors. Even if they call and their consultant is not around, he would be able to direct them as to whom to see.