We are proud to have benefitted greatly from Professor Hippolite Amadi’s neonatal medical outreach (NMO) to Nigeria. Our special care baby unit (SCBU) has come a long way through this programme. We are among the first hospitals to try the efficiency of RIT systems in 2005 after this was first launched at UNTH Enugu in July 2003. Prior to this, lack of functional incubators was a regular situation at FMC Owerri and we would not have easily believed that this programme could someday help us to become the best centre in Nigeria

Our SCBU had only one functional incubator in 2005 when Professor H Amadi first visited. By the end of 2013 we were assessed to have become the third largest Nigerian SCBU in terms of functional incubator capacity; having 2 units of Transport incubators, 20 units of base-nursing incubators and 2 units of resuscitaire/radiant-warmers, totalling 24 functional thermoneutral systems.

We embraced virtually all aspects of strategies introduced in the NMO to aid the reduction of facility-based neonatal mortality rate. We particularly favoured the staff training aspect of the Outreach, making this almost compulsory for all our Paediatrics staff that must have career progress at the SCBU. This built enthusiasm to review and improve on the sciences of practice at our SCBU. On two consecutive occasions (2012 and 2013), our centre won the trophy for Nigeria’s annual best SCBU award; and one of our matrons, CNO Felicia Nwanesindu, won the 2013 national Best SCBU-Manager award. We have had almost unbroken incubator Failure-preventive Audit Culture (FAC), ensuring that our systems were always functionally available for the teaming population of neonates that come to us. We currently operate two parallel assemblies of power-banking systems (PBS) that ensure uninterrupted incubator care due to power outages in our Units. The application of the BM02 apnoea monitoring systems, funded by Prof.H.Amadi’s UK support from The Hornchurch Baptist Church, Essex England, has become one of the most invaluable aspects of the outreach to our centre. We currently operate 16 units of the BM02 and these have effectively contributed to the reduction of neonatal mortality (NNM) in our two SCBU centres. Presently, the combined NNM rate of our two centres is estimated to be less than 90/1000 presentations, far less than the estimated national facility-based average of 250/1000 presentations; thus making us one of the best performing centres in Nigeria.