Re: Umunneato Specialist Hospital: Matters arising!

Dear Dom Nik, let me respond to you once again on government’s interventions in our health sector, especially the Umunnato Hospital you wrote about.

I have chosen to do this, so that unsuspecting members of the public are not misled by you to believe what is inaccurate.

Below in quote is a post you made a few days ago which reads thus:

“Any Man who advices a Government to knock down a Secondary Health Center to replace same with a Tertiary Health Center without making adequate provision for secondary Health Services has no business Supredenting over a health Sector in a developing country.

It is 100 times more expensive to run a Tertiary Health center than a secondary Health center! If we do not have the resources to run a secondary Health Center, Can we have the resources and complement of structures needed to run a Tertiary Health Center?

Who postulated that a secondary Health Center and a Tertiary Health Center cannot exist side by side?

The Governor needs the best of advise especially in areas that are not his primary calling”.

My response:

As a Medical Doctor, I have no doubt about your knowledge of the health sector and understanding of what needs to be done to fix our health sector, however, I have observed some challenges militating against you and they are;

1. You lack information and accurate data concerning our health sector and what the government is doing.
2. You are in a hury to criticise a policy or policies you do not have full information about,thus misrepresenting facts that you should ordinarily have.
3. You have this very wrong assumption that you know better than the team of grounded, experienced,exposed and highly knowledgeable medical professionals assembled by Governor Otti to run our health sector today.

You wrote about Umunnato that was recently flaggedoff for reconstruction by Governor Otti, obviously because of the comment made by the Governor on the day of the flag-of‍f of, that it’s more reasonable and economical to demolish decayed facilities and start afresh, than rehabilitating them and still fail to achieve the desired result. Sadly, I make bold to say that your submission was premised on ignorance of the reality on ground and other related issues.

1. Umunnato General Hospital is located in my village, so I have a fair knowledge of its history and challenges.

The Lease agreement establishing the hospital was signed on 22nd October 1962. By the time the hospital took off in 1963, it quickly became a household name in Abia North and beyond. It was simply iconic. Sadly, by late 80s, the repeated military interregnum affected the hospital like every other institution of government, due to instability in management and other challenges, hence it began to decline. By 1992,the hospital was gone and the place abandoned.

Dom Nik, close your eyes and imagine how a House you abandoned for 5 years would look like, let a lone a hospital facility that was completely abandoned for almost 40 years.
Attached here are some of the pictures of the remaining structures of the hospital before its recent demolision and commencement of its reconstruction.

How could any honest and informed person suggest that such an eyesore should not have been demolished?

2. You also believe that the government should not have come up with the idea of upgrading the Hospital to a Specialist Hospital, because it is costlier to manage a Specialist Hospital than a General Hospital. You went ahead to contradict yourself by stating that a Specialist Hospital(Tertiary Health Center) and General Hospital (Secondary Health Center)can exist side by side.
   This comment is also premised on lack of information concerning government initiatives and projects.

There are General Hospitals being worked on in Ohafia, Arochukwu, Umunneochi, Abiriba and Isuikwuato respectively. Abiriba to Alayi where Umunnato is located is about 15 minutes drive, so if the government achieves the completion and functionalization of the aforementioned Hospitals, including Umunnato, would it not have amounted to a Specialist Hospital (Tertiary) and General Hospitals (Secondary) existing side by side?

3. Your insinuation that Umunnato shouldn’t be made a Specialist Hospital further proves that your understanding of what needs to be done to make a holistic impact on the health of our people across the state is far below the vision of our Governor and those driving the transformation of Abia’s health sector.

Since you do not know, let me help you explain. Abia has three zones. There’s a Specialist Hospital located in Aba to serve Abia South. The present government is building a standard Specialist Hospital at Amachara Umuahia to serve Abia Central. Then comes the need to build a Specialist Hospital at Umunnato to serve as a referral Center for Abia North. I do not need to be a Medical Doctor to know that the difference between a General Hospital and a Specialist Hospital is that a General Hospital treats a wide variety of medical conditions and provides primary, secondary, and emergency care, while a Specialist Hospital focuses exclusively on specific medical fields or diseases. Also, while a General Hospital cannot handle certain ailments specifically meant to be handled by a Specialist Hospital, a Specialist Hospital on the other hand can handle several cases that are naturally meant to be handled by a General Hospital.

Just because a hospital is being upgraded to a specialist status doesnt mean that it will not offer secondary healthcare services. All tertiary hospitals in Nigeria offer secondary healthcare services for their catchment population as well as specialist services. By upgrading Umunnato to a tertiary hospital, Governor Otti has armed the hospital with the tools to offer both secondary level care and specialist care. That is the point. UNTH Enugu, FMC Umuahia and other tertiary hospitals offer these services and that is what the Specialist Hospital Ummunnato is meant to offer as well. Making it a specialist hospital doesnt in any way stop it from offering secondary level care, because the hospital will not turn back any Abian or indeed any sick person, even if their illness doesnt require specialized care.

In the same vein, secondary health care centers like the soon-to-be completed Arochukwu General Hospital willl also offer some level of specialized services like Eye care . These are part of the plans by Governor Otti to ensure Abians receive upgraded healthcare services. Not theoretical application based on categorisation that are out of sync with contemporary healthcare governance.

Would you prefer that the entire Abia North with its difficult terrain, land mass and population be starved of a Specialist Hospital that should cater for the health needs of the people?
If you were living in Arochukwu, Ohafia or Abiriba, would you prefer to travel to Umuahia or Aba for about 1hour to 2hours to access a medical care you can access at Umunnato for 40 minutes or less.

Have you been to FMC Umuahia to see the hell people are literally passing through. In spite of the massive visible initiatives and transformation brought there by the current CMD, Prof. Azubuike Onyebuchi, yet, people are still struggling to get the desired emergency attention and care because the hospital is overstretched as a result of the absence of a similar facility in the state? And now, the Governor wants to solve the problem and you are condemning the initiative.

Our health institutions were in shambolic states, not because those who were here didn’t have the resources to fix them, but because they didn’t have the capacity, the zeal and the compassion required to pursue the transformation of our health sector.

Please, I’ll implore you to run a way from three problems you presently have. One, do not assume that you know everything and that you know better than everyone out there. Two, refrain from criticising everything, especially what you do not have enough information about. Three, purge yourself of this thought that those managing our health sector and advising the Governor, do not know anything. It’s a demeaning and disrespectful notion you have continued to advance. The two Chief Advisers of the Governor among other competent appointees in the Abia Health Ecosystem are, the Commissioner for Health and the Special Adviser to the Governor on Health.

In case you do not know, our Commissioner for Health, Prof. Enoch Ogbonnaya Uche is an Internationally recognised and respected Neurosurgeon. He is a Medical Authority of the First Order and he has proven and continues to prove his mettle to the admiration of every sincere person who understands what’s happening in our health sector.
The Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Dr. Ngozi Azodo retired as a Director from the Federal Ministry of Health. Retiring as a Director from the Federal Ministry of Health with excellent record is not “Madam put rice and ofe akwu for me”. It takes proven Knowledge, Hard work, Capacity and Competence to become one and to be celebrated on retirement. When you engage her, you would discover why she was one.

Please, do not be the proverbial Football JB who was a pro and was scoring multiple hat-tricks from the spectator’s stand, only to cause a penalty through a careless tackle a few minutes after being drafted to the pitch.

The government is always open to objective criticism and scrutiny. The government is also open to improvement in many areas of governance, but to carelessly and recklessly dismiss the massive work going on in our health sector and the visible results achieved so far, is to indulge in a mischief that bears the trademark of witchcraft

Ferdinand Ekeoma
June 5, 2026