MDCAN, UCH mgt settle 12 indigent patients hospital bills

TWELVE indigent patients at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan had luck smiled on them on Monday as the branch chapter of the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) in conjunction with the hospital paid their bills and granted them bill waivers.

The money, which was to the tune of about N400, 000 was paid to the patients, mostly children who are had financial in-capabilities in various wards across the medical, surgical and psychiatry wards of the hospital.

The cash donation which was done in collaboration with the hospital management was parts of activities to commemorate the MDCAN Annual General Meeting.

The week-long AGM with the theme, “Team Building in the Health Management and Leadership in Contemporary Nigeria,” which commences on yesterday (Monday), will end on Sunday, September 30, 2018.

MDCAN Chairman, Dr Victor Makanjuola, who was later accompanied by the Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee, UCH, Dr Victor Akinmoladun, and other executives of MDCAN to the patients in the different wards, said they were selected for the gestures after their cases were reviewed and discovered they had difficulties paying for treatment.

ALSO READ: Between EFCC and HSBC

He added that despite the non-payment of the salaries of the medical doctors in the last three months, doctors under the aegis of the association were undeterred to engage in the kind gesture and also continue delivering clinical services.

Some of the beneficiaries included a 17-year-old boy, Sanni Akinkunmi Abdullahi in East One Ward, who received N40,000; one year and five months old baby, Afolabi Oluwaseyi; and a 22-year-old woman, Esther Olaoye, who was delivered of a boy through surgery. The patients got a varying amount based on the decision of the association.

Makanjuola said “I must also bring to the notice of the general public that we, the Medical and Dental Consultants as well as some of our younger colleagues (interns) in UCH have not been paid our allowances and salaries for the past three months. Nevertheless, we have been consistently delivering clinical services.

“This information is important to correct the erroneous belief by the general public that doctors always go on strike for money. The non-payment of salaries has also not prevented us, as an association, from being charitable to the underprivileged,” he stated.

Speaking on the theme of the AGM, the chairman explained that the theme was chosen in recognition of the unhealthy inter-professional rivalry in the health sector, its attendant negative effects on service delivery and health-related indices, adding “there is the need to reverse this ugly trend as a matter of national emergency. We are indeed concerned about the quality of leadership in the health sector and the need to have a team approach to both management and service delivery.

“We recognise that the health sector is not in dearth of very intelligent individuals in all the different professions. However, the frequent inter-professional squabbles may suggest a relative lack of emotional intelligence in these groups of professionals. Emotional intelligence in a leader makes him or her sensitive to the need of others in his or her area of influence.”