By Abdulrazaq Hassan
Uko Anthony Udoh was a Customer Care Specialist with almost three decades of service with the Ministry of Health who played a role in improving the quality of service delivery in healthcare and government institutions across Nigeria.
This he did by working for the actualisation of SERVICOM in health institutions.
SERVICOM established in 2004 is an acronym for Service Compact with All Nigerians. It is an initiative of the Federal Government of Nigeria that promotes effective and efficient service delivery in ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs). It also ensures customer satisfaction, and manages the performance-expectation gap between the government and citizens as well as other members of the public, on issues of service delivery, the ‘about us’ page on the initiative’s official website stated.
“I was instrumental in the actualisation of SERVICOM in Nigeria, my team and I worked relentlessly with proposal writing and follow-ups until we got what we are projecting now” stated Udoh who is a nominee of the 2020 Accountability Lab Integrity Icon Award.
The state of service delivery in the health sector in Nigeria is often characterised by various challenges such as inadequate funding, a shortage of healthcare workers, poor infrastructure, and limited access to quality healthcare services, particularly in rural areas. This leads to long queues and overcrowding in hospitals and clinics. The healthcare system also faces issues of corruption and mismanagement, which further exacerbate the challenges in service delivery.
There have been efforts to improve the state of service delivery in the health sector in Nigeria, such as the implementation of health policies and programmes aimed at enhancing healthcare services and expanding access to care.
Through Udoh’s leadership and guidance, healthcare professionals have been able to better understand the importance of customer relations, and how it directly impacts patient satisfaction and overall healthcare outcomes.
Udoh’s contribution didn’t stop at the technical level, he said “as a customer care officer I was able to inaugurate SERVICOM in all the University Teaching Hospitals and Federal Medical Centres in Nigeria, teaching them what customer care was really about.”
Udoh spoke of instances where SERVICOM was used to resolve issues and deliver services. One example he cited involved a civil servant in the Ministry of Health who bought a house from the head of the civil service but a deputy director who was higher in rank collected the house and backdated the documents to his favour.
“As the customer care officer, I had to file the case and take the necessary steps to see that it got to the right offices even up to the level of human rights agencies. I made sure to follow the case and finally, the rightful owner got his house back”, Udoh noted. "
Narrating another example, Udoh said, “There was yet another time when I noticed discrepancies in a file of a young woman who at that time was working in Lagos. She actually has been coming to the office but no one saw her file until she reached out to me and we found it."
"I noticed they had collected her severance package and recorded her death; also had somebody not related to her sign as her next of kin. I took up the case as I always did and on following it up, I also found out she had been laid off from work but at the end of it, she got reinstated with no further issues with her file.”
"Being in his position comes with challenges like people wanting him to use his imprimatur of office for their benefit."
He said he worked with a director who asked him to replace her name with that of another for a training programme. The replacement was expected to pay the director a fee for this. Udo said he refused the request explaining that the replacement is not qualified for the category of people the training is meant for.
He said he went a step further to document the request by sending it to the director for clearance and approval, to ensure any change follows the right process, but the director was not happy with this as she wanted it off record.
“I finally wrote to her (the director) asking her to approve the woman’s (replacement) name on the list because I needed proof if any question arises in the future but she got angry because she wanted it off the records; I refused to add the name without the approval”, Udoh stated.
Udoh’s transparency is the reason why Gabriel Ikechukwu nominated him for the 2020 Accountability Lab Integrity Icon Award. At the time of the nomination, Ikechukwu had worked with him for eight years. And in all of that time, “he has never shown a different side from the one I first knew him with, which is being truthful, accommodating, transparent and God-fearing.”
Ikechukwu said Udoh always excels at his job “There is an activity termed Data Quality Assessment and Integrated Supportive Supervision which we carry out throughout the 36 states of the federation, and due to his sincerity, accountability, and disposition to work, he is being nominated as the desk officer for the activity.”
He explained that Udoh excelling at his job comes with its own challenges “… with his level of sincerity, people at work see him as a man who does not bend the rules for anyone’s favour.”
Confirming this Udoh said he had opposition from colleagues, friends, and superiors but was able to overcome them because of the “relationships I had built over the years.”
The challenges however have not stopped him from wanting to work with people.
“Yes, I am willing to collaborate provided I will be allowed to work with my conscience,” he said.
He said integrity takes years to build “it takes years for people to know the real you and what you stand for” while adding that it is built by consistency and leaving an exemplary lifestyle.
This report is championed by Accountability Lab Nigeria and sponsored by The John D. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation and Luminate
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