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Olorogun (Dr.) SONNY KUKU Reveals
Olorogun (Dr.) Sonny Kuku, who was recently installed the Ogbeni Oja of Ijebuland is a distinguished Medical Doctor who years ago set up the popular Eko Hospital in Lagos.
Below, in this invterview with BANKOLE TAIWO he revealed how himself and 2 others set up the hospital in 1978.
Was that how the story of EKO Hospital began?
That was a factor additionally. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who took over after Muritala was killed, barred medical doctors working with the government from engaging in private practice. I had to choose if I would go private or be with the government. Many people actually left the service then but in my own case, two things happened. My field, endocrinology which is about studying hormones was very rare and you cannot treat people having hormonal problems without measuring them but the tools and technology to use were very expensive and they didn’t allow me to set up the laboratory in LUTH because of the needless hostility towards me. So, I had to borrow money to set up this lab outside which I run alongside my clinic. Without this laboratory, an endocrinologist will not be able to do the job because it is akin to a surgeon without a scalpel.
I had to decide if I would not let my investment in the lab become a waste or continue in a place where they did not even appreciate scholarships. Secondly, my two other colleagues and I had been running a clinic. We were using a rented flat. My two other colleagues were Alex Eneli, a gynaecologist, Amachi Obiora, a surgeon, and myself, Kuku for internal medicine. That was how we came about the name EKO Hospital. We used our initials to form the name of the hospital. We were using the same flat but running different clinics according to our area of specialty. We were operating independently referring patients to one another at the beginning. However, we decided to form a partnership and merge our services to run a hospital. We borrowed some funds and it was about this time that Obasanjo came with his policy. We said to ourselves whether we should return this money and continue with government practice or take our destiny into our own hands. At this point in time, things were already going down in government teaching hospitals. All of these factors coupled with how shabbily and unjustly I was treated in LUTH made the three of us bid the government job farewell and we embraced the private practice.
Although my mother could not fathom all of these, I gave my mother a bit of trouble with some of my decisions. Anyway, that was how we started EKO Clinic and because we had tertiary backgrounds, you know we were all coming from LUTH, we could do some things differently with a touch of first class. From one clinic, we moved to two, three, four, and so on. We then began a hospital and because we were getting a high volume of patronage and there was a need for expansion, we built the one in Ikeja. We started tertiary medicine, and we began training students, interns, and doctors to be consultants. We became the first tertiary hospital in the private sector, and the first private teaching hospital in the country. We train postgraduate students in Medicine, Physiotherapy and all that. A lot of people come in there for their internship and housemanship.
When did you start the EKO Hospital?
We started in 1978. My two other partners have both passed away. Lest I forget, the entrepreneurial prowess and success of EKO Hospital lies in the fact that it became the first hospital to be quoted on the stock exchange and up till now no other one yet. It was the first time Medicine was turned into a business.
What made you go to the stock exchange?
Yes, when we wanted to start the tertiary hospital, we needed N15m which is like N15bn today, so we started approaching banks to give us money but they kept asking us how many injections we would give before we pay back the money. This was in the mid-80s. The money was huge and they thought that we wouldn’t be able to pay it back. They did all the calculations and said we couldn’t get the money.
However, one day, I met the Director-General of the Stock Exchange Market on a flight and he said that I heard you guys could not get the funds you wanted from the banks. He then suggested that we should go to the stock exchange; that once the bank heard that we were quoted, we would get the money, and that by going to the stock exchange, we would have been able to spread the risk among maybe 10,000 or 15,000 shareholders. So based on this counsel, we went back to the bank and discussed going to the stock exchange. We told them to put down whatever they could afford while we approached the stock exchange to raise further funds. They did all the workings, there were complications but somehow they were able to work out something and we got quoted. The banks gave us the money that they could raise. However, we had this brilliant accountant then who told us that we should wait for another two years before going, that the two years would enable us to have history, and records of our cash flow, and people would get to know the capacity and pedigree of where they were investing in and they would be willing to buy the share. As God would help us, we finished payment of the money we collected within the two years. So it was easy for us to go to the stock exchange. This success led to the birth of other big hospitals later.
