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…. Pride self on harmonious working relationship with unions, digitization of hospital
From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
The outgoing Chief Medical Director of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Prof. Darlington Obaseki, has called the COVID-19 pandemic period as his most trying moment as the CMD of the hospital.
He disclosed this while sharing with Journalists his achievements as the CMD of the hospital in Benin.
Prof. Obaseki said majority of the health workers were afraid to treat patients but he and his staff were on ground to attend to their needs.
“But I think COVID-19 period was very hard. COVID-19 was very hard. Very, very hard. A lot of you don’t want to know what we went through here. But you don’t want to know. Myself and my management team, first and foremost, what people didn’t get is apart from COVID-19, people were still dying of other diseases. A lot of our colleagues wanted us to close shop. A lot of people stopped coming to work. A lot of people went to hide.
“So we needed to be strong, we needed to be brave, we needed to be in the forefront. Every day I was in the COVID-19 ward. From the first day where everybody was hiding, everyday I was going to the molecular lab with my team. I never shied away because I knew that leadership is about signaling. The signal people take away from.
“Out of fear, some hospitals closed services, they stop seeing patients. In fact, I want to dare to say that a lot of persons that died during COVID-19, did not die because of COVID-19. They died because of lack of care, because everybody was scared.
“When they had those that had diabetes, those that had other diseases, even trauma, the quality of care dropped to almost sub-zero. But we fought very hard. I was unpopular within the hospital because I fought very hard that no, we can never do this. We cannot close this hospital down. We cannot close any segment of it down. Some people wanted some segments to be closed. I refused to”, Obaseki said.
Obaseki who expressed satisfaction over the installation of cancer machine in the hospital, said though plan is still on the way to acquire another machine, adding that, the already installed machine will be operational by September this year.
Obaseki also refuted the claim that the hospital charges are on a very high side and out of the reach of the average Nigerian.
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He said though the prices of things have gone up in the country but the hospital has refused to increase the cost of its services.
While speaking on tackling of brain drains in the medical sector, he said the problem can only be best solved when the nation’s economy improves.
He said his administration has been able to digitize the operations in the facility unlike before where staff have to be moving about with files, noting almost everything is connected to the internet.
Obaseki maintained further that he remains very happy and fulfilled to have been able to build a cordial working relationships with the various unions in the hospital and which has prevented them from embarking on industrial actions throughout his eight years as the CMD of the hospital.
Speaking also, Comrade Iyobosa Omosigho, Chairman, Medical Health Workers’ Union, described the outgoing CMD as a worker friendly person.
According to him “for these past seven years, we have not had internal crisis because he took the welfare of the staff as his priority.
“For over seven years, we have gotten constant promotions, conversions and this is the best way you can appreciate your staff who have done well.
“I would not say he’s a perfect man. To an extent, I can rate his administration 99.5%. He has done well. He has always been there listening to the union”.
CMD, UBTH, Prof. Darlington Obaseki (m) flanked by other staff of hospital
