The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire has urged the management and staff of Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital Yaba to improve on their performance to enhance the hospital’s reputation.

Ehanire made the remarks during a visit to the hospital on Thursday in Lagos.

He said the hospital had a reputation, that should be sustained by its management and staff.

He added that the development of the hospital became necessary because of the increasing mental health cases in the country.

According to him, the country is having more and more neuropsychiatric problems and as a result there are lots of work for the psychiatric hospitals.

“We have heard from the medical director that this is a historic hospital, historic in the sense that we are told it’s the second hospital after Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital Calabar (FNPHC).

“Apart from being historic, it is also a hospital that has reputation; it has a name, it’s well known and also well respected all over the country.

“And that is something that is not to be taken lightly when a hospital has reputation.

“First, because it’s a challenge to you, not only to keep that reputation, but to build on it.

“It is true that we are having more and more neuro-psychiatric cases here; there will be a lot of it from the North East, a lot from the North West where people are being harassed by bandits and kidnappers.

“So there will be plenty of works for the psychiatric hospital to deal with, and it must be prepared to deliver,” he said.

Commending, the medical director’s efforts and creativity in trying to fix things around the hospital and sustain it, Ehanire advised her to be more specific on what she wants to achieve.

He emphasised on the need for the hospital to have a ‘Strategic Development Plan’ that defines what it wants to do, how it wants to do it and what it requires to achieve it.

He also advised the medical  director to give attention to the limitations faced by the hospital, which includes land space, saying that hospital could be built to be 10, 11 or 12 floors.

“I commend you medical director for your efforts and for your creativity. I see also the energy you have spent in trying to fix things around here; and to show me your dreams of how you want to create more than you met when you came in, which is a very good ambition.

“My recommendation is that you build up this place. Build upwards and make the best use of the land. We shall support that effort.
“You can build upwards too, because Lagos is growing and the need for neuropsychiatric services will increase.

“So the work you do will continue to increase and we have to invest in mental health as much as we can.

“But we need all the concept from you.

“So am telling you medical director, to draw up a concept note; draw up a strategic development plan for this hospital; where you want to go.

“What you want to do, and it’s when everybody sees you have a definite plan that is strategic and goes beyond ‘build one here, build one here’ that assistance may come in.

“Also give attention to the limitations that you have here, and how to compensate for the limitations.

“There is limitation in space which can be taken care of by going up. There are hospitals now that are 10, 11, or 12 floors.

The minister regretted the attrition in loss of medical staff going abroad to practice.

According to him, countries abroad are looking for opportunities to beef up their medical staff as it is expensive to train a doctor.

Ehanire said that they were taking advantage of Nigeria’s already trained doctors.

“To train a doctor in U.S costs about $300,000, there is nothing like scholarship. You can get a grant, and you will payback when you finish your studies.

“Now, how nice and cheap it is to get doctors from Africa, for which they didn’t pay a dime to train,” he said.

He, therefore, reiterated the commitment of the government to encourage, train and develop the doctors in order to retain them for better healthcare service delivery to the nation.

On the state of COVID-19 interventions, Ehanire said the country would receive the vaccine within the next two to three weeks.

He said that when the vaccine arrives, the frontline health workers would be the first to get, because they were the ones facing the risk and are more vulnerable.

The minister noted that the federal government was working hard to revive the nation’s vaccine production plants.

“We are hoping to start getting vaccines within the next two weeks. We have a committee now that is going to also start evaluating vaccines; what kind of vaccines we get, how do we do the financing.

“The National Primary HealthCare Development Agency is the vaccine delivery agency of the country.

“And the government is working toward reviving the vaccine production plant now, which we have partnered with the pharmaceutical company May & Baker to have a company called Bio-vaccine.

“We are working on producing vaccines again, which stopped in 1990, that is over 30 years ago. We used to produce vaccines for small pox, yellow fever, among others – all those have dried up,” Ehanire said.

Earlier, the Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Olueayemi Ogun, identified infrastructure decay as one of the challenges being faced by the hospital.

Ogun said that most of the few existing infrastructure facilities in hospital were dilapidated and needed to either be renovated or changed completely.

She stressed the need to equip the hospital with trained and specialist doctors, while efforts would be made to encourage and retain existing ones. (NAN)