Lagos Cardiac and Renal Centre On The Verge Of Collapse on HWN UPDATE

At the twilight of his reign as governor of Lagos State, one of the projects commissioned by Babatunde Raji Fashola was the ultra-modern Cardiac and Renal Centre, located beside the General Hospital, Gbagada. The centre was built with the hindsight of providing qualitative healthcare delivery to the people. Besides, it was aimed at helping to stem the alarming rate of medical tourism outside the country, with particular regard to the growing problem of cardiac and renal diseases in Nigeria. It was designed to be manned by experienced health experts and sound human resource managers.

But barely one year after commissioning the more than N5 billion health facility, the centre is teetering on the brink of collapse. This is due to infrastructural defect and lack of working capital by the concessionaire to properly manage the facility. The concessionaire, Renescor Health LLP, a consortium of international health experts with varied experience in cardiac and renal management, have been finding it extremely difficult to properly run the centre. Problem started when many of the equipment and infrastructure handed over to the concessionaire by the Lagos State government were found not to be in perfect condition for use. In fact, some of them only lasted a period of six months and a chunk of the revenue generated within this period was used to service these equipments.

One of the major problems of the centre is low patronage which is as a result of the exorbitant charges the average patient visiting the centre cannot afford. In the last few months, the centre has increased the price of dialysis and other medical procedures more than three times. It only slightly reduced them lately after it had lost many patients to other dialysis centres operating in Lagos.

It is also important to note that most of the consultants, professionals and expatriates employed by Renescor Health LLP, left the employment of the centre not as a result of being redundant due to non-functional equipment as widely circulated by the management and the media, but due to the fact that the management is unable to meet their financial obligations to them. Most of these consultants and expatriates, who are mostly Indians, were being owed more than five months salaries before they decided to leave the employment of the concessionaire to join one of the foremost cardiac hospitals in Nigeria.

It is also instructive to mention that there has been internal acrimony and power play among members of the management staff of the centre. This has inadvertently taken the centre backward and also stands as a major setback for full operational efficiency as the management’s energy is needlessly dissipated trying to resolve the internal acrimony and schism within. The actions and inactions of these quarrelsome management staff have forced good hands to resign their appointments with the centre. Some other staff have also been single-handedly sacked by feuding senior management staff through emails, which is considered to be very unethical and a gross violation of labour laws. Even at that, a good number of the staff who, were either sacked or who resigned, are still being owed more than four months salaries.

In the true sense of it, the management of the centre has shown their incapacity to manage the medical facility. During the last fuel scarcity that preceded the current one, the centre was shut down for more than three days due to the management’s unpreparedness for such emergencies. The management practically shut down the facility with the lame excuse that they could not get fuel to power their machines. This is far from the truth. The truth of the matter is that the vendors who supply both medical and non-medical materials to the centre bluntly refused to supply anything to the hospital as a result of the huge indebtedness of the centre to them. Till date, several categories of vendors are being owed more than N15 million. The other ugly side of the centre’s huge indebtedness is that several support staff that were out-sourced, have also terminated their contracts with the centre. Lately, Halogen, a security outfit engaged to secure the facility, has terminated its contract with the centre even as it is being owed arrears of payment. This is even as others who are yet to terminate their contracts, are complaining bitterly about non-payment for services rendered.

However, the bottom-line is that it appears the management of the facility lacks the wherewithal to properly manage the facility. Though the centre is blessed with good manpower, the management has been lackadaisical with the welfare of its staff. This has resulted in incessant strike actions by the staff who, are being owed more than seven months salaries while their efforts to call management’s attention to their plight, have been largely ignored. The staff of the centre are currently on strike, the third time in six months. They had previously shut down the centre on two different occasions but were called back to work with the promise of paying, but these promises were never fulfilled. Whenever the workers embarked on strike actions, the management had always lied to the Lagos State Ministry Of Health and the state House of Assembly Committee on Health that the machines were faulty, to cover up, without actually opening up on the real problems confronting the centre.

Beyond the fact that workers are being owed seven months outstanding salaries, it was learnt that all deductions from workers’ salaries are not being remitted to the appropriate agencies. It is on record that since the commencement of operation, all pensions and PAYE (Pay-As-You-Earn tax) are not remitted accordingly. Efforts by the staff to get explanation for this inhumane action of the management have fallen on deaf ears.

Unfortunately, while the management finds it difficult to meet their financial obligations, they have equally shown a high propensity to unnecessarily overload the center’s workforce for no justifiable reasons. Recently, the management embarked on new employment and no fewer than 20 members of staff were employed for non-existing jobs. The employment was done without due process and 70 per cent of those employed were said to be close relatives

and friends of a top official, whose attitude and behavior towards staff members and patients has been known to be irrational and out of place. The official is also said to have hijacked the duties of the procurement manager by single handedly bringing in her friends to be supplying medical consumables and other materials needed by the centre at cut-throat prices. So, there is a major racket going on at the centre.

Of particular worry is the quality of care provided to patients as most patients complain of the shabby way they are being attended to at the centre because the quality of care provided is not any different from that of a typical general hospital in Nigeria. As it is, the problems of the centre are enormous and the only solution is for the Lagos State government to quickly wade in as it is obvious that the concessionaire lacks the expertise and managerial skills to manage the multi-billion naira facility. The Lagos State government should not hesitate to do the needful to salvage this health facility from total collapse.

There is no doubt that there are so many issues competing for attention in the state, especially in the face of dwindling financial fortunes of the state. Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, will do well to look passionately at the problem of this Cardiac and Renal Centre in view of the increasing number of cardiac and renal diseases all over the place. This is with a view to strengthening its operations to meet the exigencies of health care delivery in the state. The Cardiac and Renal Centre is a brilliant idea of a world-class hospital which must not be allowed to die.

Source: ThenationNg, HWN Africa.