Borno Flood: Reps seek urgent intervention for University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital

The severe flooding that occurred in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, on 10 September has killed over 30 people and affected more than one million others, according to the authorities.

Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions, Amos Magaji, said the House will move a motion for urgent intervention in the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, which was ravaged by the recent flood disaster in the state.

Mr Magaji disclosed this on Friday after a tour of the facility.

The lawmaker explained that the aim of his visit was to assess firsthand the damage to the hospital’s equipment and infrastructure caused by the recent flood in Maiduguri and to learn how the legislature could intervene to resuscitate the institution.

“By the time I get back to Abuja, we are going to move a motion for urgent intervention for this hospital. That is why I came. So, it is not somebody reporting to us the level of destruction, we have seen for ourselves the level of destruction and how the hospital. With what I have seen, indeed, this hospital needs urgent attention?” Mr Magaji said.

He said a hospital is a place where many people are immobile and sick, and once there is a disaster in the hospital, it is of concern to everybody.

Borno flood

The severe flooding that occurred in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, on 10 September has killed over 30 people and affected more than one million others, according to the authorities.

Multiple sources confirmed that the incident was caused by the collapse of the Alau Dam on the Ngadda River in the state. It has been described as the worst flood disaster the state has ever experienced since the dam collapsed three decades ago.

The state governor, Babagana Zulum, and environmentalists have linked the dam’s collapse to the government’s decade-long negligence.

Mr Zulum blamed the Federal Ministry of Water Resources for failure to carry out routine maintenance of dams for years.

“The Federal Ministry of Water Resources ought to have been carrying out routine maintenance of dams. Honestly speaking, this has not been done for a long time. This is something that we need to put our heads together so that we can do it,” the governor told the BBC.

Damaged equipment/infrastructure

On Friday, during a tour of the state’s affected areas and the tertiary health facility, PREMIUM TIMES reporters observed that a significant part of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital was engulfed by the flood.

This has forced the hospital to shut down operations temporarily as most of its critical equipment across various departments were suspected to have been affected by the water.

The floods destroyed several hospital records, and many patients undergoing treatment at the time were urgently transferred elsewhere.

“These equipment are so expensive that when exposed to the element, it compromises their functions or even renders them useless and then of course also to know the intervention that we can bring from the legislative angle,” Mr Magaji said.

The lawmaker commended the efforts of the hospital’s Chief Medical Director (CMD), Ahmed Ahidjo, and his team and said his major takeaway is that he is happy to see how this hospital has been positioned.

“The CMD was telling me how people from different parts of Nigeria come here and, of course, other African countries seek medical care here. This is the goal of the committee,” Mr Magaji said.

Reversing medical tourism trend

Mr Magaji said one of the targets of his committee is to reverse and reduce medical tourism in Nigeria.

“When we came into the 10th Assembly, our goal was to reduce medical tourism or to reverse it rather, making sure that instead of Nigerians going out of the country for medical tourism, people should be calling from other countries,” he said.

The lawmaker said the billions of naira Nigerians spend abroad on medical care should be domesticated here to improve the health sector in Nigeria.

He reiterated that the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital needs urgent attention and that the House will call on the federal government for urgent intervention so that it can begin operating fully.

“We are having a drive to improve infrastructure and equipment in the hospitals. If we reverse medical tourism, our hospitals and tertiary health institutions must actually look like not only the University of Maiduguri Hospital, but we actually need all the tertiary health facilities to really look like health institutions. The unfortunate thing now is the cost of equipment,” he said.

Mr Magaji said the equipment they previously obtained for N1 billion cannot currently be obtained for N4 billion because of its naira-dollar value.

He said this is a huge responsibility, and the legislature is already giving matching orders to institutions that any equipment procured must have at least a three—to five-year maintenance agreement with the manufacturers.

“Secondly, our people must be trained. Very importantly, all our critical medical equipment must be insured, and what has happened here has underscored what has happened with equipment in all our hospitals. This is one thing we are going back again to ensure that it is done,” Mr Magaji said.