Our Hospitals: Making Things Work was deliberately made the size it is to encourage the reader to read from the front cover to the back cover. Though the book reflects the situation in many developing countries it dwells principally on the scenario in Nigeria.
Hospitals are supposed to be centers of refuge and help for those in need of assistance to recover from ailments of the body and mind. In some instances they are not, for they become places that children are afraid to be taken to and adults defer taking a trip there for one reason or the other. This book stands on the unfortunate pedestal that things are not working as they ought to and it makes an effort to encourage us, the players, to push to make things work.
When you read “About the Author” you will find that I have worked in every conceivable kind of medical facility in Nigeria – emphasis is on “kind.” I thus happen to know what has been happening therein and passionately desire that things would be as good as they are in the good places I have worked in.
Hospitals are structures where humans work and are taken care of. When hospitals are looked at from this perspective they are just a portion of the healthcare delivery system in any community. “Our hospitals” may simply be hospitals in a small locality, in a state, or in an entire country; at whatever level they are and we find them, they must work.
I co-opted specialists in a couple of areas to handle, alongside with me, the issue of providing information towards achieving consistent functionality of hospitals – and they did. These individuals are Dr. Osahon Enabulele, President of World Medical Association (WMA); Dr. John E. Opute, Associate Professor and Course Director, Postgraduate Human Resources Programs in the School of Business at London South Bank University, London; Godfrey Okon Udo, Professor of Estate Management, University of Uyo, Nigeria; Eme Ukot, Professor of Nursing and CEO of Tranador Health, USA – they wrote on Overview of the topic, Efficient human resources management in hospitals, Considerations for management of health facilities, and Getting the best out of nursing personnel respectively.
The second part of the book has the following practicing physicians who also run the respective Nigerian hospitals they wrote on: Dr. OmoOlorun G. Olupona (Bowen University Teaching Hospital, Ogbomosho), Dr. Emmanuel Kunle Abudu (University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, Uyo), Dr. Raphael Sunday Olarewaju (Mother and Child Hospital, Lagos), and Dr. Inyang A. Ukot (RST Clinics Ltd., Uyo).
In this book the importance of policies on health, government non-hospital institutions directly responsible for healthcare delivery at federal, state, and local government levels, conceiving, designing, constructing, operating, and maintaining the physical structures called hospitals is emphasized. The critical nature of funding, training, recruitment, career trajectory, succession planning, relationship among the various professionals, support personnel, etc. is addressed vis-à-vis their effect on how things are within the four walls of every hospital.
Public, mission, teaching, and small private hospitals are also described adequately.
