The University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, says there is no report of total blackout and blood bank downward trend in the hospital.
Dr Abiodun Adeoye, Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee (CMAC), and also Director of Clinical Services, made the clarifications on Tuesday in Ibadan, while briefing newsmen.
Adeoye said that there was no record of any negative blood transfusion or reaction in the hospital contrary to unverified report in some online media.
He urged journalists to always approach the hospital to seek clarification on issues, saying that the hospital would be glad to address any request seeking clarification or reaction.
Adeoye said: “Concerning the report, I can tell you that we are surprised, because as the Director, Clinical Services, I am not aware of such.
“Immediately I heard about the report, what I did was to call the Head of Department and she said there was no such issue.
“We called the Engineering Department as well to confirm, but they said they were also surprised that something like that was reported.
“We called our assistants and others who worked with us and they told us it was not true.
“We all found out that the information could not be true. We don’t know, maybe some certain people are not happy with the progress we are making; though, we cannot be perfect hundred per cent.
“So, we would have loved a situation where if the reporter has some issues and wanted clarifications, he or she should have approached us to ask questions.
“Also we would have been very glad to address whatever the case may be, but this caught us by surprise. We are not aware of such and the report is not correct.
“As far as I am concerned as Director, Clinical Services, I don’t have any report on any blood transfusion we had that is viewed as a bad transfusion.
“If the person can come up with more specific evidence on what he has seen, we can take it up from there.
“But, as far as we are concerned, there is no such report. We have gone round and are still doing our investigation, and if there is any report of such, I should have the report.”
On electricity supply at the hospital, Adeoye said that in spite of the very low supply these days, the hospital relied on generating sets to complement the supply from the national grid.
He said that the hospital has a lot of generating sets, but because of cost implication, the hospital was making use of more than 40 generating sets.
According to him, the service areas like Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Accident and Emergency and others are being run on inverters.
Adeoye said the Blood Bank, which the report said was experiencing a downward trend, has two functioning generating sets, adding that it was the next on the line to get inverters.
He said the hospital was also looking at generating power through the Independent Power Project (IPP), adding that power outages would soon become a thing of the past in the hospital.
The CMAC chairman called on well-to-do Nigerians who could assist the hospital to come forward like some philanthropists have done in the past.
“Yes, I want to commend the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), which has prioritised power supply for the UCH.
“We have up to 20 hours per day and we complement our generators; but, when they have problems, we rely solely on our generators.
“We used to make sure that our service areas were not affected when there was a power outage.
“We deprived some offices because of the comfort of ourselves or that of the Chief Executives as we can bear it. But our priority is the patients in the hospital,” he said.
According to the chairman, hardly do we have this kind of crisis, if not three weeks ago that there was a major problem with the Transmission Company of Nigeria, and they are working on it. So, as we are, we are running generators.
“Specifically, for the Blood Bank, a philanthropist donated a new generating set to the unit in October, 2022, but we have a permanent solution we are looking at. We want to increase the presence of inverters in all these service areas and the Blood Bank is among.
“As a matter of fact the Blood Bank is the next on the line to get these inverters. We are also looking at the Independent Power Project (IPP).
“We have invited some companies and interviewed them. I believe they will come up very soon and all these issues of power outage will become a thing of the past in UCH,” he said.
However, a staff at the hospital who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on condition of anonymity, said there was no down time in the operation of the Blood Bank.
“Our power issues have been resolved.
“If it were to be early last year, we had issues then, but now, we are running our operations smoothly,” the staff said. (NAN)
