RAYMOND OZOJI reports
12 medical doctors from the United States of America and United Kingdom respectively have launched Pinnacle Consultant Hospital and Clinics Limited at Ojoto Idemili-South Local Government Area of Anambra State to provide what they described as evidence-based medicine and to end poor medical practices in Anambra, Southeast and Nigeria in general.
This was the crux of the matter at the groundbreaking ceremony of the multi-million naira multi-purpose hospital which aims to promote a patient-first healthcare system that adheres to internationally accepted standards of care for communities.
The epoch-making ceremony of Pinnacle Consultant Hospital and Clinics Limited Ojoto which took place at the weekend, had the 12 partners express optimism that the advent of the hospital would help address issues of medical tourism as well as incessant preventable deaths resulting from inadequate care or outright lack of care for patients.
President of the Board of Directors of Pinnacle Consultant Hospital and Clinics Limited Professor Okonkwo Fidin his speech noted that a lot of people die of curable ailments on daily basis in Nigeria and government doesn't seem to care.
Prof. Ndubueze recalled that he lost his father at Nnewi due to the negligence and ineptitude of a professor of medicine who erroneously certified his father fit to return home from the hospital after which his father died based on wrong medical advice from a professor of medicine.
He also stated that a friend of his whose father had a fracture was being taken care of by a professor of orthopedics at Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital Nnewi died carelessly in the hands of the professor due to inadequate care, stressing that too many of such pathetic stories abound which is why they have come to change the narrative of healthcare delivery in Anambra, Southeast and the country at large.
He said that 77% of all the black physicians in America are Nigerians and according to him, there are 26,000 black physicians in the US while many Nigerians are also in medical schools and residency programmes; wondering why Nigerians should be saving the lives of other people and not saving there own lives.
Prof. Ndubueze therefore maintained that Pinnacle Consultant Hospital and Clinics Limited is the epicenter of what will change the narratives of healthcare. He said no longer should anyone go to the hospital for medical care and he is told that the doctor is not on seat.
He said no one should go to the hospital in Nigeria and be given fake medications. That instead of being medications, the patient is given chalk, stressing the dire need for Nigerians to promote what is good for them and not what will terminate their lives unnecessarily and untimely.
The Pinnacle Hospital president who observed that the health sector in Anambra State is not where it should be, urged government to rise up to the level of other developed societies, noting that free pregnancy care and free child delivery are all embedded in medicine and not something that should be overemphasized by the government.
According to him, a lot of people die of heart attacks and that government also lacks treatment for stroke. Although he pointed out that they are not competing with the state government and they are not apportioning blames but they have come to partner government to bring healthcare to the highest level that would be at par with other developed nations even as he assured that Pinnacle Consultant Hospital and Clinics Limited would herald evidence-based medicine as it is practiced in the US and UK respectively.
Meanwhile one of the directors of Pinnacle Consultant Hospital and Clinics Limited High Chief Dr. Ambrose Okonkwo who is an indigene of Ojoto in Idemili-South Local Government Area of Anambra State but lives in Goldsboro, North Carolina USA and specialises in family medicine, said that the vision behind the establishment of Pinnacle Consultant Hospital and Clinics Limited was to create a healthcare system at home that shares the same standard of care operated in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Okonkwo explained that physicians from the United States of America and the United Kingdom gathered themselves together to work on the vision of bringing the standard of medical care overseas back home to change the status quo in the health sector even as he mentioned that most worrisome is the incessant preventable deaths due to lack of good healthcare system and poor professional standards.
On his part, the traditional ruler of Ojoto community His Royal Highness Igwe Gerald Obunadike Mbamalu expressed profound gratitude and appreciation to the 12 diaspora medical doctors who deemed it fit to establish the world-class Pinnacle Consultant Hospital and Clinics Limited in his domain, assuring the investors that the hospital would be given maximum security and protection.
Igwe Mbamalu said that the hospital is a facility that would save lives; ease the burden of healthcare as well as help every strata of the society meet their medical and health needs in the most internationally accepted standards and compassionate manner, adding that every department of healthcare would exist in the hospital and there would also be specialists for every aspect of health issues.
Igwe Mbamalu equally noted that Pinnacle Consultant Hospital and Clinics Limited will save people the cost of traveling far and wide to seek good and quality medical attention thereby reducing medical tourism and capital flights.
He was equally of the opinion that Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo would be happy that the hospital was established in Anambra State as he believes that Pinnacle Consultant Hospital and Clinics Limited will help to compliment his robust medical programmes deployed in providing good healthcare services to Nigerians living in Anambra State.
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