By Joseph Joy and Onyekachi Agu

Safeguarding lives particularly that of infants or new-born babies could be considered a herculean task, but to Professor Uchenna Ekwochi, doing such is a hobby, a passion and a calling.

Professor Ekwocchi who is the Provost, ESUT College of Medicine, stated on Thursday that he has managed and taking care of over 7000 new-born babies since he started his profession as a medical practitioner specializing in children and their related diseases.

Professor Ekwochi who delivered the Enugu State University of Science and Technology 46^th Inaugural Lecture on Thursday, said that taking care of new-borns is not just his profession but a passion.

“My Profession is my hobby, a deep passion. In 2012, when I returned from residency and got employed at ESUT Teaching Hospital as a paediatrician, I reopened the new-born unit. The new-born unit was formerly opened, but when the consultant working there exited the system, it was shut down. When I came on board, I reopened it, and I have managed over 7,000 sick new-borns in the unit,” Prof Ekwochi who is a Professor of Paediatrics and a Consultant, stated while delivering the lecture held at the ESUT College of Medicine Auditorium, Parklane, Enugu

He however explained that carrying out such tasks could not have been a personal efforts. He noted that he has a team of consultants who coordinate the work.

“Well, I have a team; it’s not a one-man show but a teamwork. I started alone in 2012; in 2014, they employed another consultant to join me. We started with 2 but now we have more than 5 resident doctirs in the new-born unit. I have another consultant that works with me. It has grown because initially, we had a bed capacity of less than 10, but as am talking to you, there are more than 20 for each of the sections. We have the inborn and the out-born sections, and we have managed quite a lot of babies, over 7, 000 of them.

“ESUT Teaching Hospital is like a referral centre since UNTH moved from the Metropolis; all the babies that get issues around this area have no other paediatric ward than to come to Newborn Unit in ESUT Teaching Hospital.”

He also talked about inadequate manpower to handle the volume of new-born babies and called on the Enugu State Government to consider engaging more hands in that regard.

“Most times, our bed occupancy rate would be more than 95 percent. Every time you enter there, we don’t have enough manpower and human resources. So, the aftermath is that workers are overburdened. This place is filled every time with several cases coming. Some of these cases can actually be prevented. That’s what I actually made people know in this lecture. If we do what we ought to do, there are so many cases coming in that wouldn’t have come because we have given them preventive measures.

“Some of them are coming as complications and not as signs and symptoms of the illness. Example: yellowness of the skin and the eye, which can damage the brain. Most mothers in our environment, instead of coming to tell you that ‘I have a baby that is having yellowness of the eyes,’ but they will not come until the baby has refused to suck—that means the disease has entered the brain and damaged the brain. That’s when the mother would recognize. ‘My baby is no more sucking; the leg and hand are stiff.’ It’s already complicated. The reason why it’s like that is because they didn’t even know when the baby became sick.

“I also called on the government to engage more hands in the Teaching Hospital,” concluded.