By Sabo Garba Dagauda
All good legacies recorded in governance begun with worthy, purposeful leadership. A very good legacy for any administration can be looked for in effective healthcare delivery. But frustrating this opportunity today in Nigeria is a wobbly state of the economy harshly telling on life styles of citizens. The situation backfires with variety of illnesses arising from hunger and deprivation.
The prevailing economic difficulties in Nigeria can potentially weight down political efforts towards putting down legacies in the delivery of social services, including urgent areas like healthcare, especially when brilliant leadership is lacking. The kind of leadership in which crucial services remain vibrant and lives of citizens are secure.
Before the establishment of FMCs, serious health issues affecting most Nigerians were relegated to Cottage and General Hospitals. Third tier medical services were based at capital cities,Teaching Hospitals and of course the last option of foreign Hospitals for the rich and powerful Nigerians.
Today tertiary medical care can be effectively rendered by the existing FMCs operating alongside the Teaching Hospitals. One of the latest progress on this is emerging in Bauchi State where FMC Azare is being considered for upgrading to a Teaching Hospital for the Federal University of Health Sciences Azare and the upgrading of General Hospital, Misau to yet another Federal Medical Center. Such a milestone in health care delivery should be buttressed by effective leadership to make a viable legacy.
For instance, FMC Azare which is transforming into a Teaching Hospital, as observed by Dr Dauda Abubakar Katagum, it’s one year on seat MD, has a strong hold on cartering for effective tertiary health care services for communities in Northern Bauchi State and fringes of neighboring Yobe State.
The current transformation will help address training needs for experts to address the Health challenges in the North East , a sub region that UNICEF noted is having one of the worst mortality rate from controllable diseases perpetuated by poverty and backwardness.
Generally considering the cash squeeze in this era, governmental organizations are performing at low ebbs. While we cannot undermine the negative impact of the harsh economy, we should not underscore what brilliant leadership can do to create a difference. FMC Azare was not spared the hard bite which tempered with some of the ways it’s services were discharged.
For Dr Dauda Abubakar Katagum who took over leadership in a challenging scenario, it barely took him a year to prove that brilliant leadership counts for legacies to be nurtured.
With scarce resources at his disposal, God willing, his sense of Prudence guided him to restore inactive equipment ; add new ones; build a new maternity theater and encourage productivity to sustain the mandate of tertiary health care delivery.
To sustain tempo, he leads the management to check facilities and equipment monthly to ensure that no long term breakdown weight down the development that’s steadily unfolding. That defines in practical terms, all about effective leadership. It’s not just about having plenty of money at your disposal to squander, it’s rather having to do with using the little available to create results for common good, especially in a challenging economic situation.
Managing our viable health institutions very well is one key to consolidating the purpose for which they were created. Nurturing legacies for permanent benefit by the society.
For us in Katagum Zone of Bauchi State, and largely the North East Sub region, we look forward to extending such brilliant leadership at FMC Azare into the upcoming FUHSA Teaching Hospital, Azare and for the Federal Medical Center, Misau.
But meanwhile our pleas as citizens is for the Federal Government to introduce a kind of subsidy in tertiary medical services alongside the health insurance scheme for workers. Please, Amin thumma amin.
By SABO GARBA DAGAUDA
FARMER IN AZARE, BAUCHI STATE.