EMMF: Making a Difference in Nigeria

The status of the Eastern Nigeria Medical Centre

 

 

Current Status of ENMC - A Mirror of the Nigerian Economy

 

The impact of fifteen years of economic decline has been a severe hardship for the people of Nigeria and has been devastating for the ENMC.  The price of medicines and other medical supplies that must be imported have been inflated by government import policies.  With the unemployment rate hovering around 30% and most educated Nigerians underemployed, few are able to pay for their medical care.  The favorable mix of charity and paying patients previously enjoyed by the hospital has become unbalanced, leaving the staff to forego capital improvements and upgrading of medical equipment in order to sustain its daily operations. True to its mission of being a charitable hospital, ENMC turns no one away, despite finding itself in a country struggling with an AIDS epidemic superimposed on a heavy burden of tropical illnesses such as malaria.  Nevertheless there is much optimism.  On May 29, 1999, the nation’s military head, General Abdusalami Abubakar, turned over power to an elected leader, none other than retired General Olusegun Obasanjo, who in 1979 was the military leader who restored civilian government to Nigeria, the Second Federal Republic.  You will recall that it was also Obasanjo who, while military head of Nigeria, returned ENMC to the control of Dr. Okeke and the Board of Trustees.

 

 

 

 

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