The newly rehabilitated medical facilities of the Abia state government appear to have begun yielding beneficial results to the people of Abia state. According to the health ministry in Abia state, the dialysis center located at Umuahia Diagnostic center which was recently rehabilitated by the Governor T.A Orji administration has handled 51 dialysis patients in the month of February 2014.
This was made known by the medical top boss at the facility, Dr. Chima Chukwu who took press men on a guided tour of the facility recently. He stated that the facility is equipped with 6 dialysis machines – of which one unit was dedicated to HIV patients and one unit dedicated to hepatitis patient. The reminder of the units [4] were reserved for normal dialysis patients.
He made it clear that the facility is looking to expand to accommodate more patients. ‘’It costs N23000 for each session’’ said the medical boss while noting that when patients don’t have the money ‘’we pay’’. ‘’We are currently operating a 16 hours shift every day and we are open every day for now, except for weekends’’. He added that with time ‘’we are looking to operate around the clock, 7 days, 24 hours’’.
When queried on the cost of the dialysis session being on the high side, the medical top boss stated that the price of N23000 was actually among the cheapest available in Nigeria except only for Delta state. He revealed that it cost about #21000 for the consumable for each dialysis session.
‘’We virtually run the place on generator sets especially during dialysis session’’– and this he said adds to the cost of operation. He added also that the government of T.A Orji is highly subsidizing the cost of operating the facility so that it can be affordable to a reasonable extent. ‘’we have 3 doctors and 2 consultants here’’.
The medical boss concluded that “this facility is a success story of the Orji administration”.