The National Hospital, Abuja (NHA) says digitalising its medical records enabled it to ensure
accountability and transparency, which helped the facility to generate more than N400 million Internal Generated Revenue (IGR)
monthly.
The Chief Medical Director, Prof. Mahmoud Raji, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja while unveiling the hospital’s 25th anniversary logo.
Raji said that the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) is an advanced system that increases transparency and ensures accountability.
He added that the system cuts off a lot of corruption and leakages “and because of some of these changes, you could see within a year or so,
how much the IGR has increased.
“When we started about a year and a half ago, our IGR was roughly between N180 million and N200 million per month.
“Now, we clock more than N400 million, nearly N500 million per month. That’s just within a span of a couple of months.”
The CMD also said that the hospital was still trying to expand the digitalisation process to ensure more accountability, transparency and efficiency.
On other successes recorded in the past 25 years, Raji said that though the hospital was initially meant for women and children, it
expanded its mandate to involve all other specialties.
He added that “for instance, when you’re talking about In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF), it is the first public hospital in Nigeria to start IVF.
“As at today, probably in Sub-Saharan Africa, National Hospital, Abuja, is leading in terms of cancer care.
“We have been training a number of staff in various fields. We have fabricated Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) for
neonates, which is an innovation that wasn’t there before.
“Every year, National Hospital churns out a number of consultants, specialists in medicine and a number of postgraduate nurses in
oncology and nephrology.”
Raji, however, said that the hospital is grappling with enormous funding challenge and would welcome support from all quarters.
He, therefore, appealed for support from the Federal Government, individuals and philanthropists, international and national collaborators
or through Public Private Partnership (PPP) engagements.
While unveiling the 25th anniversary logo, former Chairman of the hospital’s governing board, Alhaji Hamza Sakwa, said that the glory of the
hospital that was almost lost has been restored.
“Now, it’s all praises for the National Hospital and I’m urging the Federal Government and those that can assist, please assist the hospital to make it the number one treatment centre in the country.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the National Hospital was established by Act 36 of 1999 as a 200-bed National Hospital for women and Children (NHWC).
It was established with a view to reducing morbidity and mortality rates, and to carry out extensive research into the peculiar causes of women and children-related diseases in Africa.
However, in year 2000, the name of the hospital was changed to National Hospital, Abuja, with a mandate to cater for all and in 2011, and transferred from the Presidency to Federal Ministry of Health for supervision. (NAN)
