By Adam Muhammad Dodo
I’ve received phone calls, SMS, Messenger and WhatsApp text messages that someone has gone to a media Wednesday, to blast federal medical centre Yola of what he considered as adding insult to patients injuries, arguing that it should be better to remain as she was than to be upgraded to a teaching hospital.
The informants revealed to me that the opinionated minded would rather have a teaching hospital established somewhere than upgrading FMC Yola.
The seeming opinionated minded argument was that Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital delivers less stressful, patient compliant healthcare vices and not the medieval kind of cumbersome processes patients and relatives were subjected to, in Auwal Abubakar led FMC Yola hence, increasingly avoided the health facility.
That it was laughable, FMC Yola didn’t even have a POS or Internet banking services in a cashless society where even fruits and vegetables sellers in Yola market were compliant to the automated transactions.
That for the opinionated minded, it would be additional doom, an intensive suffering on the side of the patients and relatives when FMC Yola was upgraded to teaching hospital.
“Patients would suffer more in FMC Yola than they are currently suffering, if eventually FMC Yola is upgraded to a teaching hospital,” the opinionated minded, without recourse to critical thinking, was reported to have insinuated.
I laughed. My informants however argued that it was not funny, considering the local audiences and those antagonistic to the unequalled achievements being recorded in FMC Yola.
I told them that it was laughable because campaign of calumny and/or chronic-know-nothing about how a system being challenged operated and/or attention seeking, politically motivated opinions, never would ever distract our attention to the mission and vision of FMC Yola.
“Is the opinionated minded, challenging HRH the Lamido Adamawa Dr. Muhammadu Barkindo Aliyu Musdafa for presenting his demands before President Muhammadu Bihari about 8 days to presidential election; part of which was upgrading FMC Yola to a teaching hospital after wining the election?
“Is the opinionated minded, acting on obnoxiously falsified script and elaborating with collaborative affection, the fiction or figment of imagination, to downplay the commendable achievements of Sen. Aisha Dahiru Ahmed known as Binani for tabling the case before the Senate and pursuing it assiduously to success; Upgrading FMC Yola and upgrading Technology based to a conventional based university for MAUTech now MAU Yola to be able to accommodate a medical college, law and other humanity facilities?
“Is the opinionated minded, suggesting that the Adamawa leaders, elder statesmen, scholars and people with conscience beyond political boundaries, ethnicity and/or tribal affiliations, led by the governor of Adamawa Rt. Hon. Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, lacked foresight and critical thinking, when they visited President Muhammadu Bihari to present the popular demands of Adamawa people, part of which, was upgrading FMC Yola to a teaching hospital?
“Where has the opinionated minded placed, as a position, the former Vice President Alh. Atiku Abubakar, a presidential aspirant, the Waziri Adamawa who “fanatically” joined in fraternity with the men of conscience, agitated for upgrading FMC Yola to a teaching hospital among other demands?
The two leadership worthy and academically weighty ABDULLAHIs; Prof Abdullahi Yusuf Ribadu former VC and Prof Abdullahi Liman Tukur present VC MAU Yola, could invariably be conceived, in the perception of the opinionated, as joining the romance with balderdash in supporting the upgrade of FMC Yola to teaching hospital.
“Do you know that FMC Yola operates, based on its operational guidelines, as a referral hospital in an environment further away from a teaching hospital?
Do you know that FMC Yola goes beyond operational mandate to cover both the primary and the secondary healthcare?
“Does the opinionated minded venture to ponder over what goes wrong with other health facilities for FMC Yola to be overstretched and staff over stressed?
“The opinionated minded could compare the services in other FMCs and teaching hospitals, It would however be a worthy information for the interviewers and likely audiences if he could have come up with fees for services charged in different public tertiary health facilities.
“Do you know that FMC Yola is always over 100% bed capacity? What makes him think that patients are avoiding FMC Yola? Where will they possibly go to access effective, efficient and relatively cheaper healthcare services?
“Do you know that patients from as far as Lagos, the south-south, other states and neighbouring countries come to FMC Yola for treatment?
“It’s laughable that someone can think of ignoring FMC Yola to establish a different teaching hospital, when it is the capability of human resources and healthcare facilities, joined together that have attracted the agitation for a teaching hospital.
“I’ve explained several times, while responding to such sentiment prone, politically motivated and chronic-know-nothing insinuations that FMC Yola has since started postgraduate (residency) trainings in major departments following the accreditation by the relevant professional and academic regulatory bodies relating to healthcare.
“Where does the opinionated minded want whoever he wants to establish a teaching hospital to look for adequate capacity of facilities and human resources?” I put the questions forward to my informants.
I have not read or heard how the seeming attention seeker “attacked” FMC Yola, whether or not it would be worthy for a hit back. Whether or not the medium being the messages respects media ethics of “being balance” and code of the national broadcasting commission and the press council that calls for fair and truthful journalism.
However, NTA Yola, Gotel Communications; ABC Yola, the Daily Trust and the Periscope online reports are sufficient enough to seeming attention seeker, see how empty the unconstructive criticism against FMC Yola can be.