We Don’t Demand Payments Before Treating Emergencies – UCTH CMD

The chief medical director of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Prof Ikpeme Ikpeme, has stressed that emergency patients are treated immediately without payment demands.

He said that cases of emergencies were treated before making demands for paying stressing that claims in some quarters that the hospital makes demands for payments before providing medical attention to cases of emergencies were false and baseless.

Speaking with journalists after a facility tour in Calabar on Friday evening, he said, “For emergencies, we do not insist on payment before treatment,” directly addressing concerns about patient rejection.

Prof Ikpeme pledged to see the ongoing facilities reform and infrastructural upgrades at UCTH through to completion to improve service delivery and expand the hospital’s capacity to handle complex medical cases across its 62 clinical and non-clinical departments.

He revealed that the hospital currently operates about 38 wards and clinics, most of which have undergone complete remodeling or renovations to meet international best practices. During the visit, he also unveiled a male ward named after Prof Emmanuel Nwafor and several others.

The CMD said UCTH now performs advanced medical procedures previously unavailable in the region.

These include hip and knee replacements, brain tumour surgeries, spinal surgeries, and minimally invasive keyhole procedures. He noted that patients can often be discharged the day after appendix removal through minimal access surgery.

To manage rising patient pressure, a new Department of Emergency Medicine is under construction. The facility will include trauma bays, intensive care units, and emergency theatres to improve response to critical cases.

Ikpeme added that the hospital serves patients beyond Cross River State, receiving referrals from neighboring states and countries like Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.

On staff conduct, he said management had introduced a reward and disciplinary system to strengthen professionalism and patient care. He also responded to claims of ethnic discrimination in the recruitment of house officers, describing allegations that Igbo candidates were rejected as false and not part of hospital policy.

Ikpeme denied that he personally rejected any Igbo house officers, stating the affected individuals never met with him before taking the matter to social media.

He pointed to the recent naming of a ward after an Igbo medical practitioner and noted that the current Head of Nursing Services is also of Igbo extraction as evidence against the claims.

He commended the administration of President Bola Tinubu for supporting UCTH through the Federal Ministry of Health with modern equipment and infrastructure, including the “Health in the Box” electronic medical record system.

Ikpeme said the ongoing renovations reflect federal intervention in the health sector and affirmed that appointments and promotions at the hospital follow due process and seniority.