by Jane Osamor
IN OVER 30 YEARS, DR SHAKIRU BAMIDELE MUSTAPHA HAS HORNED HIS SKILLS AS A PHYSICIAN SO MUCH SO THAT HE NOW UNDERSTANDS ALL THAT HE NEEDS TO MANAGE A HOSPITAL IN THE 21S CENTURY IN THIS PIECE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, JANE OSAMOR; FABULOUS CELEBRITY INTERNAIONAL MAGAZINE AT THE HEAD OF A CROSS SECION OF THE LAGOS PRESS CORP PEEPS INTO THE EXPERIENCES OF THE EPE BORN MEDICAL EXPERT AS HE TRAVERSED LAGOS IN THE LAST 50 TO 60 EN ROUTE AKING A CAREER IN MEDICINE AND SURGERY, EXCERPTS….
We are going to say it is a big privilege being in your office; it is a beautiful this December; 2023; we say thank you very much for this kind of gesture of bringing us here; with people from all kinds of platform availed with the chance of witnessing this epoch-making event. It’s a cross section of the Lagos Press Corp and I am the founding editor-in-chief of the Fabulous Celebrity International Magazine. We are not the only one that see what you do others around us see it as well as ifako ijaiye was no like this before you came into the picture.
I have been working here and I have been doing a lot of news interview for a lot of people as well. I have been following all that you have been doing and It has been a case of services rendered to humanity creditably and that is why we deem It fit to present this award to you by knocking on your door this morning. From Onikan; epe; badagry; ifako ijaiye and all over Lagos we are here to witness this elaborate event as we all say thank you and a very big congratulations sir!! To whom much is given much is expected, I know a lot of people have been saying that we are doing our best butt it is not me but the entire management as we do have a very good team working with one over here.
In a nut shell how has It being with you since you joined the hospital here at ifako ijaiye; Lagos; Nigeria.
I happened to have worked in 3 senatorial district in the city of Lagos; Onikan Health Center /Central Senatorial District, Epe General Hospital [Lagos East Senatorial District] over here at Ifako Ijaiye [Lagos West Senatorial District] there are different peculiarities in various hospitals but the most vital thing here is for you to look up to them.to look up to your hospital management team. If you can get a very good grip of all of the head of Department, it might not even be all but a sizeable number of them on your side hen we are talking very seriously.
They are the one doing the real field work as all I do is I make sure that I identify the basic ones ,even if people believe that our decision making should be centered around Alausa secretariat but It is our believe that from within we should be able to extract something so that at the end of the day we can then think of developing the infrastructural ,environmental and human basis for our operations.
What was the relationship between the management of Ifako General Hospital and the Rt Honorable James Abiodun Faleke health related project?
Rt honorable Faleke happens to have been a case of God’s gift to us in ifako Ijaiye and It is an established fact that health is wealth and by the time you look at your people and you know that most of them cannot afford some of the prices of the surgery then you have intervene. This is what he has being doing and not only that he has proven to be very fantastic; he has never a any point in time denied us of any forms of assistance that we are asking from him and so he has been a very wonderful man and we have kept praying for him. We pray that God in his infinite mercies will continue to be with him and guide him in all of his pursuits
How has the Japa Syndrome affected your sector; what is your hospital doing to respond to this great challenge of our time?
Thank you very much, the state government is fully aware of this Japa syndrome and it has even given approval for exit replacement; as they go, they would need to give us a prior notice though it could take sometimes but we will eventually get things fixed. Our medical doctors are very resilient as when you have 2 0r 3 of them and you talk to them about the importance of the jobs that they have undertaken to do for us they can handle what 10 doctors will struggle to do. We talk to them very well and we let them know that if anybody had exited amongst us, we will get adequate replacement sooner than later.
What are your people doing about the machines used for Nephrology ,I happened to have had a twin brother who died of kidney related issues and I knew how much it costed to do dialysis for 5 years and I am always interested in knowing what the government is doing about having the machines and its price regime policies for the ordinary man ?
Thank you very much, first and foremost I want to say sorry about your loss as it comes at a specific time and when it does come you go and say that Baba you are welcome back to him. The state government is actually trying its best and you cannot recall the 28 hospitals with dialysis machines in very specific hospitals we do have this kind of machines, I can tell you that we do have them.
We have in Ikorodu; General Hospital Lagos for the central ,here and we also have in Gbagada and we have being handed an order or instructed that whenever there was an urgent need we should direct patients to those nearest to our senatorial district so it is as simple as that 4]are they all working adequately in their respective locations? As a normal human being even we men we get to a stage when you get to your peak there are sometimes when you get to the lower ebb if you have 10 and about 7 is working then I think it is beautiful but when you get to a stage when you need to service 5 of them together you will be talking about a large sums of money here.
People want to harness this services if possible free, people will come here like 250 to300 and then they will start calling politicians to start harass me and they then ask me Mustapha what will you do for us and I tell them what are they really asking me to do as it is the money that we are using to maintain the hospital. I ask them what they really expect me to do ,it is at such times that they now begin to look at how to change their plans but if at that everybody accesses the services of Lagos Hospitals owned by the state without any form of reduction in prices with payments made promptly we will achieve our aims as we will be on top of our profession and sector…
so, the problems are lack of funds? unnecessary exemptions and political influence being peddled all over the place by patients. there is this word on the streets that people are poorly treated in the course of receiving treatments here at the hospital but I never experienced such here at Ifako .the child in question now is about nine years and we had to stay up to support the child at the time due to severe pains. It is still happening in other hospitals and so what are the steps being taken to stop this type of situation? generally speaking even amongst us seated here if you have about four children you will not tell me that all of them run on the same template 100 percent. Here in this hospital I have about 200 nurses and about 50medical doctors despite the Japa syndrome and so it will be humanly impossible for all of them to behave in the same way. In the ratio of maybe I will not even want to put into a quote of patients to a medical technician there is widening in our environment and in the same environ they will tell you 10:15 per doctors and we are being made to soaking it about 50;60 and it will even get to a state and You can get to a state individual differences comes into play ,you can imagine coming over from your home in the morning after waking up around five or six so as to get o work on time but you did not get there on time. You probably sat in the bus or taxi or your own personal vehicle for 3 hours to get to work you are already tensed up as he environment is bad and if you are very much unlucky and it is a bad day may be your cash will be stolen hence you will be under tension. If someone is coming you are most likely going to be very agitated as you will be insisting that you should be attended to on time but most of the time, I think our people have to learn to balance the equation
The state government knows the need for us to make changes on a regular basis via trainings and at least 2 forms of these are approved on a early basis right from the medical doctor to the security in the hospital .in other words the medical doctors ,nurses ,the health attendant, the security experts and so almost everybody enjoys this scheme from Alausa secretariat and The issue is not even about training alone as the government lays complete emphasis on specifics.
You will not see anybody who will be praying after waking up on a morning date and saying that he prays to have an accident. Are we saying that we have not seen accidents but are we paying for it so natural events will come up but the best option is for us to have a look at things critically? first and foremost. the management of Lagos state from training and training I have been told that you place your number as if u move around the hospital right now you can place your number in case there are issues so that it could be sorted out within and make sure that you get It right at that level ,you can also get it at his level and then they will call me :Mustapha we have an issue with your hospital and then they will debrief me .if you go beyond that one to Alausa and they get in touch with us we can tell that we are human beings we are meant to err .But please anywhere we step on your toes forgive us and call us to order and that is where we are but I can assure you that you cannot see a perfect human being anywhere and so we all cannot be perfect and if there is no kind of scenarios where you are dealing with hurdles in life then we are just deceiving ourselves. Husband and wife at home, we are talking of supposed soul mates now there are bound to be some kind of frictions but the ability to give It some time and call each other together and resolve whatever the issues are is actually the most important thing in Lagos General Hospital generally.
What method have you applied for all your workers to make a better call as It is so easy as they are always there for you and ironically in the same way you re speaking. Boss and staff relationship does not come cheap but yours is exemplary ? You are making me feel emotional ;I think that to a very great extent I will say that I am very lucky in that aspect and I must say that God has blessed me with a very good and listening Ear and when they call me I will listen to the problems and then I will take immediate steps at sorting out the problems.
Then you have to be able to do an effective follow up as you call the same person the following day to know how he or she is doing a day after and I can assure you that some kind of excitement will build up or be there is not as if things are all about money. Occasionally you look into there welfare and you ask them what do they really want and when you chart a course .but when you have a submissive wife at home the home will be very peaceful that is more or less what I can see as it is more of a symbiotic relationship. Before you call on my team to go and do something they will no just undertake to do it but will do it far beyond expectations ,so when they now need anything no mater how painful my legs can be at that time I am willng to bear it for them and also making sure that if It requires me to stand I can get them what they are looking for at that particular point in time.so it has being more of a jolly good fellow relationship
8]What were the challenges you met on the way before you got to your present position in life? there is no time that you will not meet challenges on the way but most of the time when you come across hurdles It should make you happy because It is more or less a situation that helps you to spring up or win promotions .treat any challenges very seriously as a form of feedback ,I mean people are verbally attacking you that you come to work very early and so that gives you the chance to have a meeting with them so that you can tell them of the vital importance of getting early to work and before you could say Jack Robinson you will discover too that It is affecting them too as you could be told that this is the position of the management but It is all about communication.
Issues will always come up from any level as either they will tell you that you come in very early or that you are too harsh or those them that you wan to encourage b making them imbibe a good corporate and administrative culture they will tell you that you are too harsh as he does not know more than memo. Then you set up a committee to listen to the populace so that they get you feedbacks I must say that feedbacks are not meant to be complimentary but critical. Positive remarks will make you relaxed but the one that will ruffle my comfortable zone and this will help me to improve and this type of situations have helped me in no small measure.as a lot of hurdles will come up as your people could come up with health related issues that you might not even be handling here at ifako ijaiye General Hospital and if possible support them financially . A lot of issues could come up jus take things in your strides; I mean people will attack you but you should learn to develop tough skin to the attacks.
You can come to meet that you need N50,000 but if I take a look at my pocket and I discover I only have N30,000 I will not be able to help you and the person can verbally assault you but do not take that to heart as another person could come also with a need hence you will need to treat each individual on their own merits and with time they will sill sing praises of you.
