By Meletus EZE
A pharmaceutical company, Pharmacy Plus Limited, has donated complete sets of alternative power supply systems to the Federal Neuro Psychiatric Hospital (FNPH), Kware, in Sokoto State.
The company’s representative, Mrs Joy Omeri, who presented the items to the hospital management on Thursday, said that the gesture was part of company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
She said that the gesture was to complement the government efforts to equip health facilities, adding that the hospital was selected because of its specialised services and its location.
She noted that the hospital had been attracting patients from states across the country and even foreign countries, noting that it also served as a hub of mental health care delivery and training of mental health professionals.
Omeri urged hospital’s management to sustain their quality service delivery and commitment, which had gained recognition from the citizens.
She also appealed to the Federal Government to provide the hospital with its required needs.
Responding, the Medical Director of FNPH, Dr Shehu Sale, thanked the pharmaceutical firm for the donation and pledged to make judicious use of the power supply systems.
He said that the systems, which would serve as backup to the existing public power supply channels, would significantly aid efforts to boost power supply to the hospital, calling other companies to emulate the firm’s gesture.
He commended the yardstick which the company adopted for selecting health facilities for such donations, adding that the hospital had specialised doctors and other professionals working in different departments.
Sale said that the hospital also accommodated the school of post-basic nursing, while collaborating with other institutions on mental health care delivery and related areas.
The medical director said that people with severe mental illness often had poor health-related quality of life, among other conditions.
Sale, however, noted that majority of the existing developmental and poverty alleviation programmes had failed to reach persons with mental or psychosocial disorders.
He urged philanthropic individuals and organisations to always consider mentally retarded and rehabilitated persons in their programmes so as to uplift their living conditions.
He also called for increased funding for the mental health programme, while giving it priority that was akin to the attention given to malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, as well as the maternal and child health programmes.
