BY FAVOUR PERCY-IDUBOR/ BENIN
THE 7th Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, in its 52 years of existence and first female CMD, Prof Idia NibukunIze-Iyamu, has pledged that UBTH will remain a trusted refuge for patients, a hub of innovation for medical science and a living proof of what is possible when compassion is joined with competence, and when leadership rests on integrity.
Professor Ize-Iyamu made the pledge at her first day in office and official handover ceremony by the outgone Chief Medical Director, Professor Darlington Obaseki yesterday. She assured of absolute dedication to excellence and support the national drive for equitable, cost-effective, and reliable healthcare for all Nigerians.
Speaking further the CMD said, “To my predecessors in this office, especially Professor Darlington Obaseki,I salute your efforts and sacrifices. Each of you built bridges that brought UBTH to where it stands today. It is now my responsibility to strengthen those bridges and to build new ones toward a future of greatness.
“Today is not merely about the appointment of a new Chief Medical Director. It is about the dawn of a possibility- a renewed conviction that when barriers fall, progress begins; and when vision meets commitment, transformation becomes inevitable. Yet, these possibilities must become practice. Practice is seen when the poor are treated with the same urgency as the privileged; when compassion shapes every clinical decision; when complaints become tools for improvement; and when dignity is restored in every act-from greeting a patient, to cleaning a ward, delivering a baby, or comforting a grieving family. From this day, we move from hope as a feeling to hope as a habit.”
