Sonia Johnson, an American Feminist Activist once said “that one determined person can make a difference, and a small group of determined people can change the course of history”.

This expression aptly captures the nature, personality and leadership style of Dr. Stephen Terungwa Hwande, a celebrated consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, who is today celebrating one hundred days in office as the Chief Medical Director of the Benue State University Teaching Hospital Makurdi.

Dr. Hwande’s appointment by Governor Alia on the 16th October 2023 was not a jaw-dropper to many as he is well known for his unwavering diligence, insatiable appetite for excellence and determination in achieving his desired goals.

For this 100 days that Dr. Hwande has spent so far in office, the success he has achieved in the restoration of sanity in both clinical and administrative sphere at the once vibrant hospital has been unprecedented.

He has demonstrated courage, dexterity, innovativeness and professionalism in tackling the multidisciplinary and multifaceted challenges that brought the facility to its knees, including poor staff welfare, lack of basic equipment, decaying infrastructures and poor revenue generation.

In a bid to improve the revenue base and stop the questionable flight of the hospital’s resources, Dr. Hwande in the first week in office, terminated a private partnership arrangement between the hospitals Radiology Department with a private firm in which, although owned the equipment, the structure, manpower and was the one paying for utilities, it was receiving ten percent of the revenue generated, while the partnering firm retained ninety percent.

He equally terminated a similar arrangement in the hospital laundry where the firm spoilt all the washing and drying machines and the industrial pressing irons handed over to it in a lease agreement and was manually washing the hospital linens and drying them on bare ground and grasses, yet receiving one point two million naira monthly.

In addition, on discovering massive leakages of the hospital’s resources by staff in the process of handling cash, he introduced a cashless policy at the hospital an action which resulted in a remarkable and sustained improvement in the amount entering the hospitals coffers.

Owning to his belief that clean and neat environment provides a good atmosphere for staff and healing for patients, Dr. Hwande has within this period given facelift to several structures at the hospital, including the gate and fence, General Out Patient Department, Isolation Centre, Haematology and blood bank and the Creche, while the morgue, and fridges therein are undergoing repairs, preparatory for recommencement of wet embalmment.

Dr. Hwande demonstrated capacity and competence by activating services at the Mohammadu Buhari Mother and Child Hospital, built and donated to the Benue State government on the 1st of August 2022, which was lying fallow.

The hospital now operates 24 hours and key departments of the hospital including Paediatrics, NHIA Family Medicine and other services are offred at the Centre also known as BSUTH Annex.

Knowing that you cannot have a clinically viable and functional hospital without equipment, Dr. Hwande repaired several broken down equipment including the C.T Scan, 3 dialysis machines, as well as some laboratory machines to enhance prognostication and treatment of patients.

He equally procured many equipment and tools, including an ophthalmic operating microscope, non-availability of which hog-tied the ophthalmology department from carrying out eye surgeries for over a year.

With regards to making patients and staff to feel at home while at the hospital, Dr. Hwande procured and installed television sets and decoders at all the patients waiting areas at the GOPD block as well as in the open areas in the wards and theatre block for viewing.

In order to tackle the issue of quantity and quality of water, Dr. Hwande engaged the services of water treatment experts who have installed mini water treatment machines which has solved the issues of salty, hard, smelly and corrosive water the hospital has suffered from, over the years while overhead tanks have been installed at strategic positions, and water now flows to the wards and to the doctors quarters.

In the area of enhancing mobility for staff of the hospital, Dr. Hwande has repaired and refurbished all the 7 official vehicles of the hospital, some of which were down for several years, and has equally recovered an ambulance and Prado Jeep belonging to the hospital which were in wrong hands.

Concerning the issue of staff welfare, Dr. Hwande is fully aware that without a well-motivated workforce, he cannot achieve anything, and has therefore placed the issue on the front burner.

On arrival at the hospital, he held meetings with all the unions when he assured them of his willingness to safeguard their welfare and followed it up with the payment of the new hazard allowances to all staff. At the moment the hospital is processing the 2024 promotion for its workforce.

In addition, Dr. Hwande, on seeing that the hospital is grossly understaffed kick started a process to recruit all cadres of staff through a transparent process of employment which commenced with advertisement, examination and completed with oral interviews with those successful to assume duties next month.

The teaching hospital under Dr. Hwande is witnessing a clean environment with no paper litters while many toilets that were bad have been replaced and are usually clean.

Dr. Hwande has also expanded specialist services at the hospital with the re-introduction of services that were folded up due to lack of specialists and introduced new ones.

Consequently, he has persuaded and brought high class specialists and has restored endocospy services, paediatric surgery, dermatology, laporoscopic surgeries with more efforts to introduce more specialist services.

He has also expanded the scope of clinical services by introducing IVF, his own sub area of specialization, which will run at subsidized rate, and recruitment for the first set to be anchored in March April is already on course.

Since after his coming Dr. Hwande has also attracted a lot of goodwill to the hospital, as several medical equipment worth millions of Naira have been donated to the hospital, by groups and individuals.

The wonderful and excellent performance of Dr. Hwande as CMD of BSUTH has truly earned him the confidence of Governor Hyacinth Alia who has not only visited the hospital five times within this period, but also complimented him for the good job he is doing at the teaching hospital.

To demonstrate his support to Dr. Hwande, the Governor also decided to site the 200KVA solar power supply the Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima donated to Benue State at the teaching hospital, the project which he also commissioned by himself.

As we celebrate the 100 days in office of Dr. Stephen Hwande as the Chief Medical Director of BSUTH, we wish to state without fear of equivocation that the CMD’s excellent performance is a testament that Governor Alia did not make a mistake in appointing him to the position.

We also wish to use this moment to appeal to well-meaning sons and daughters of Benue State and public spirited individuals to support Dr. Hwande in accomplishing his desire to make the hospital the best in North Central Nigeria.

Script written by Mr. Cephas Hough.
Head of Public Relations
BSUTH, Makurdi.