By Davies Iheamnachor

PORT HARCOURT—MANAGEMENT of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, UPTH, has raised an alarm over mosquitoes’ invasion of the hospital, saying it is a scourge that needs urgent attention.

This came as the hospital gave an indication of a possible marginal increase in the cost of service to sustain good quality healthcare services.

The Chief Medical Director, Professor Aaron Ojule, spoke yesterday, while announcing that the Association of Resident Doctors of UPTH had suspended its 10-week old strike.

Resident doctors in UPTH had gone on strike on August 3, following unresolved labour issues.

While urging the doctors to resume duties immediately, Ojule claimed the reason for calling off the strike was due to a significant paradigm shift in the funding and running of public hospitals in Nigeria.

Noting that UPTH and other public hospitals will now depend on internally-generated revenue for their running, Ojule called on well-meaning individuals and corporate bodies to provide support for UPTH.

According to him, the immediate concern of the hospital was the problem of mosquito infestation, noting that the management lacks the financial capacity to end the scourge.

Ojule said: “We want to use this briefing to inform the general public that the issue in contention has been amicably resolved and normal healthcare delivery service will resume in this hospital from 8a.m. tomorrow (today).

“And we came out of these crises stronger than we were. Things have been amplified by the current economic recession with associated inflation and fluctuation in the foreign exchange market.”

“These factors have largely increased the cost of input in the delivery of healthcare services.”