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EMMF:
Making a Difference in Nigeria
An address to the Friends of ENMC
EASTERN NIGERIA MEDICAL CENTRE--A PRODUCT
OF DESTINY
An Address to the
Friends of ENMC at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Ellicott City, Maryland on
August 15, 1998, by Nlogha Enwelum Okeke, MD, LMCC, FACS, FWACS, FICS, Medical
Director, Eastern Nigeria Medical Center, Enugu, Nigeria
The Reverend Daniel Crowley
Professor Rev. Canon Ilogu
Thomas E. Williams, M.D.
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:
May I first
express our gratitude to Reverend Crowley, Professor Rev. Canon Ilogu and Dr.
Thomas Williams for sowing the seed for this meeting. They have spent both their time, efforts and money to ensure that
this meeting holds and that it yields positive results. Mrs. Okeke and I are extremely grateful to
all of you who responded to their invitations.
The topic of my speech today is “Eastern
Nigeria Medical Centre - The Product of Destiny”.
On the day of my
graduation from Bates College, Lewiston, Maine in 1951, a lady walked up to me
and offered me accommodations in her home if I gained admission into any of the
three medical schools in Boston, Massachusetts. I jumped at the offer; she then introduced herself as the wife of
the Episcopalian Bishop of Massachusetts, Rt. Rev. Norman B. Nash. By December of 1951, I moved into the home
of Bishop and Mrs. Nash in Boston. My
five years stay with them influenced my life greatly. The Bishop officiated in my wedding in 1956. I was then still living in his home. When I completed my medical training and
surgical residency in Boston, I returned with my wife and two children to
Nigeria in 1960.
The seed of
establishing a private non-profit hospital that could help to improve the
standard of medical practice in Nigeria was sown in my mind by the late Chief
Medical Director of Medical Services in the former Eastern Region of
Nigeria. This was when he visited
Boston in 1957 while I was undergoing my surgical training in Boston. When I met him, he had to introduce himself
to me as I did not know him in Nigeria.
He requested that I promise him that on completion of my surgical
training, I would return to Nigeria not to work for the Government but to build
a hospital that would demonstrate to both existing Government and private
hospitals that we could improve the standards of medical practice by laying
emphasis on human values of sympathy, love and medical ethics. Before he left Boston, I had to make the
promise of taking on the challenge he posed to me.
Following the
above promise, I made some contacts in 1958 of persons I felt would support a
programme for establishing a good hospital not managed by the government in Nigeria. As a result, a foundation--Nigerian-American
Hospital Foundation was set up. The
Foundation was incorporated in Massachusetts on June 16, 1960 to provide for
the building of a non-profit hospital in Enugu, Eastern Nigeria.
The officers of the Foundation were:
1. Rt.
Rev. Norman B. Nash, D.D., Episcopal Bishop of
Massachusetts: President
2. John
J. Byrne, M.D., Chief of Surgery, Third Surgical Service, Boston University:
Secretary and Treasurer
3. Nlogha
E. Okeke, MD, Medical Director
Two years before
I returned to Nigeria, the Nigerian - American Hospital Foundation was
registered in Boston with the specific aims of:
a) Collecting
hospital equipment and funds to send medical equipment to Nigeria
b) Encouraging
American doctors to work in the proposed hospital in Nigeria.
On my return to
Nigeria late in 1960, I presented my programme to the then Premier of the
Eastern Region, the late Dr. M.I. Okpara.
The programme received the government’s support and it leased a 11.98
acres of land and also recommended a bank which gave me the loan to construct a
98 bed hospital. It stood surety for
the loan. In 1963, the hospital was
commissioned by the Premier of Eastern Nigeria, the late Dr. M.I. Okpara. The hospital was registered as a non-profit
hospital. It still retains this
policy. When the hospital was opened,
it received several donations from individuals, organizations and governments.
Various Ministers
of the Government and individuals donated money to help me complete the
essential buildings of the hospital.
The outpatient building was completed through the donations given by the
Nigerian Government and the Cabot (ELLA LAYMAN) Trust Inc., Boston. The basic hospital equipments were donated
by the then West German government.
Seven other foundations from the United States donated various
equipments to us. The Nigerian Tobacco
Company bought and equipped the hospital with different types of diagnostic
equipment including a modern anaesthetic machine. The Canadian Government sent a technician who supervised this
department. The foreign office of Her
Majesty’s Government in Britain donated to the hospital a large blood
bank. The Shell Company in Nigeria
visited the hospital between 1964 and 1965 and thereafter promised to build and
equip the x-ray department. This
promise could not be fulfilled due to the onset of the Civil War in 1966.
Prior to the
Nigerian civil war, the hospital gave orientation training to the first two
U.S. doctors who took care of Peace Corps Volunteers in Nigeria. Any sick Peace Corp volunteers were admitted
and treated at the Medical Centre. I
was invited to the State Department in Washington to give my advice on the
medical care of the Peace Corps Volunteers before they were sent to
Nigeria. We trained two Peace Corp
doctors that took care of the health problems of the Volunteers.
Prior to the
Nigerian civil war, groups of American doctors and nurses volunteered and
worked in the Medical Centre during the summers. Many American doctors worked at the hospital -- often for two
years. One of them Dr. Terence James
Hadley, now at Louisville, KY, still keeps in touch with us. The first dentists and first radiologist
that worked with us were American citizens.
Many Phillipino and Indian doctors have also worked at the hospital. They all gave very dedicated and committed
service. Unfortunately now that the
Nigerian currency has been drastically devalued, very few Nigerian institutions
can afford to hire foreign professionals.
On May 11, 1965,
the Certificate of Incorporation under the Land (Perpetual Succession) Act Cap
98 was given to the hospital. The
registered Board of Trustees were:
a)
The late Dr. Samuel Onwu, Chief Medical Director of Eastern Nigeria
b)
The late Dr. Kenneth Dike, Vice Chancelor, University of Ibadan
c)
Mr. William Gordon, USIS, Enugu, Nigeria
d)
James Chukwura Okeke, Businessman
e)
Nlogha E. Okeke, MD, Medical Director, Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre
f)
Mrs. Ifeoma Okeke, Matron, Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre
g)
The late Mr. Godwin Onyemelukwe, Manager, Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre
The main aim and objective of the Medical
Centre as is stated in the Certificate of Incorporation is to “provide for all
manner of people a non-profit voluntary hospital to be established and managed
at Enugu and known as ‘Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre.’” The administration of the hospital has kept
this policy up till today.
In 1966, the
Civil War started in Nigeria and ended in 1970. At the end of the Nigeria civil war, the then Military Government
forcibly occupied the hospital until 1976 when the then Head of State, General
Obasanjo, returned the hospital to us.
He believed that the hospital was rendering valuable service in its
private capacity. The hospital
buildings were left in a dilapidated state and all the equipment unaccounted
for by the Government when the hospital was handed over to the Board of Eastern
Nigeria Medical Centre. With the little
compensation paid by the State Government, we started to rehabilitate the
structures in the hospital. The cost of
rehabilitating the hospital was more than the cost of building it. Again the Nigerian-American Hospital
Foundation played a major role in the reequipping of the hospital. The Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World
Relief, the Episcopal Church, New York donated to us a blood bank (which is
still in use) and later, a portable ultrasound machine. Chief J.D. Okeke, a Trustee donated all the
equipment in the Eye Clinic.
Up to 1985, there
were twelve foreign doctors and six Nigerian doctors working in the
hospital. When the economy of Nigeria
went sour in 1985, we lost all the foreign doctors and most of the foreign
specialists in different departments of the hospital.
It is important to note the Medical Centre
was the first private hospital in Nigeria approved by the Nigerian Medical and
Dental Council to train interns. We
still train two each year.
THE HOSPITAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME
When the hospital
was returned to our control in 1976, we started a nondenominational Christian
fellowship programme. All the staff of
the hospital and ambulatory admitted patients attend the fellowship programme
every morning. All admitted
nonambulatory patients are visited for fellowship at the bedside by
representatives of the fellowship programme.
Some patients and their relatives have publicly accepted Jesus Christ
right here in the hospital. Some have
attributed their recovery to prayers of intercession received here. This is one of the most encouraging
programmes in the hospital. Many
hospitals presently are starved for patients because of the poor economy, but
we still get patients from villages and towns.
We thank God. This is all due to
God’s support of the hospital.
UPDATING MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE SEMINARS
Following the
opening of this hospital to the public in 1963, we paid attention to having a
well- equipped medical library to serve the needs of doctors and professional
staff. We subscribed to forty different
medical journals and subscribed to pediatric, surgical, medical, and
obstetrics-gynecological cassettes yearly.
Once a year, we organised seminars in which we chose specialists from
all parts of Nigeria to present papers at the seminar. We underwrote their traveling and hotel
expenses in Enugu. This we did to
encourage participation. The first
seminar on carcinoma in West Africans was held in this hospital. During the civil war, we lost all the papers
on the seminars held here.
Due to the
downturn in the Nigerian economy, we cannot now afford the money to subscribe
to medical journals and cassettes. Of
course we stopped the sponsorship of seminars very long ago due to cost
constraints. One of the deficiencies in
medical education and training of doctors in Nigeria is the updating of their
medical knowledge.
The Departments of the Hospital
a.
Male ward for medical and surgical cases.
b.
Female ward for medical and surgical cases.
c.
Pediatric ward.
d.
Maternity ward.
e.
Outpatient and emergency departments
f.
X-ray department
g.
Laboratory department
h.
Dental department
i.
Eye department
j.
Pharmacy department
k.
The kitchen - serves all admitted patients
l.
Ultrasonography department
m.
Cold body mortuary and embalming department
As early as 1989,
we started HIV screening of all blood donors as well as patients. The high cost of buying the lab reagents has
not changed our policy. But we are very
much limited by funds in the volume of work done in this area. General HIV screening service is hampered
because of the high cost of the tests.
The service should be subsidized through making kits affordable and
available.
Today in Nigeria,
over 80% of patients seen in hospitals cannot pay any amounts however small for
their medical treatment. Many of them
cannot boast of having three meals daily.
Many hospitals cannot replace any of the worn out equipment due to the
poor economy. The unemployment rate has
been increasing making the situation worse.
The Government, including the Federal Government find it difficult to
financially support public hospitals, let alone private ones.
There is no
hospital in Nigeria including teaching hospitals that has a mammographic x-ray
machine, yet breast cancer is steadily on the rise and unfortunately, not
detected until after it has started to spread in the patient. Other cases of cancers of different organs
are also on the rise. In the seven
Eastern states in Nigeria wih a population of 20 million people, we do not have
a C.T. scanner to confirm the diagnosis and follow patients’ progress during
treatment. There is only one hospital,
in Lagos, that has an x-ray therapy unit.
It is unthinkable but a fact, that there is only one neurosurgeon in our
own area of the country. The ratio of
medical consultants to the population is about 20,000 patients to one
consultant.
With such dire conditions
facing the medical practice in Nigeria, the Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre is
fervently looking for existing foundation(s) to adopt our hospital. The former Nigerian - American Foundation is
no longer functioning. This makes it
difficult for any foundation in the Untied States to donate any equipment or
monies to us. We need such an adoption
in order for the Medical Centre to continue to play a philanthropic role in
Nigeria.
Today, we want
the Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre to become primarily a diagnostic centre
rather than a treatment centre in Enugu.
We urgently need the following equipment:
1.
C.T. scanner x-ray equipment.
2.
A radiotherapy unit
3.
An x-ray mammographic unit
4.
Diagnostic x-ray machine.
5.
Various laboratory equipment including:
a) Prostate specific antigen testing equipment
and reagents.
b) EKG machine.
c) Spectrophotometer with U/V light source.
d) Machines for determining blood chemistries
6.
Laser ophthalmology equipment to treat cataracts and glaucoma.
And just as
importantly, we need American doctors to volunteer to work with us in
Nigeria. It is now difficult to get
specialists in Nigeria.
Distinguished
ladies and gentlemen, we depend on you to get any of the existing Foundations
in the United States to adopt the Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre. This will make it possible to obtain funds
and buy equipment for the hospital; and underwrite the travel expenses for
American doctors wishing to volunteer their services. We need your help so as to extend the basic medical facilities to
Nigerians. It is not an easy task, but
we shall overcome and achieve the goals of Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre. It is a hospital that has great ideas, a
hospital that has had a good start, a hospital that was nearly completely
grounded by circumstances, a hospital that is now inviting you to help
resuscitate it. I hope each and every
one of you here will take up the challenge by submitting ideas, and giving
moral and financial support. And lastly
but not least, by upholding it in your prayers.
I sincerely thank
Reverend and Mrs. Crowley whom we first met when I was practising in New
Bedford, Massachusetts in the mid 1970’s.
They have been the pillars supporting this bold initiative. I decided to take a wild shot by writing to
Reverend Crowley about our problems.
See what is resulting from that initial impulse. May God direct it to hit home. We cannot thank them enough. Reverend Crowley was the vicar of my
church--Saint Martin’s in New Bedford.
May God Almighty reward you and your charming wife Suki.
Our beloved
professor Edmund Ilogu has joined the band wagon. He knows first hand the problems that we have in Nigeria. He was the vicar of my church in
Nigeria--All Saint’s Church, Enugu for many years. He is also a good friend of the family. We are lucky that he has shown so much interest since we told him
of our search for sources of support for the Medical Centre.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the ball is now in
your court. Thank you for patiently
hearing me out. May I introduce my wife
Ifeoma who is a nurse trained in both England and the United States. We will be happy to entertain any questions
that you might wish to ask.
Nlogha
Enwelum Okeke, MD FACS
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