Abstract:

The University College Hospital was established by an Act of Parliament in 1952 in response to the need for the training of medical students following the establishment of a Faculty of Medicine at the University College, Ibadan in 1948.

The physical development was commenced in 1952 and clinical facilities were formally commissioned in November 1957. The naming of the Hospital, appointment of the Chairman of the Provisional Council of the University College Ibadan as the first Chairman of the Board of Management and the provision (physical facilities for students’ from its inception, were ample proof of the functions envisaged for the hospital though primarily concerned with teaching and research with service only at a level to ensure the satisfactory performance of these basic obligations.

The situation changed dramatically with the Nigerian Civil War. The well-regulated processes of referrals from General Practitioners, State Hospitals and Clinics and Selections at the General Out-Patient Clinics (GOPD) were modified with consequences for disproportionate service load.

In the ensuring years, the symbolic relationship between the hospital and the University was a success story not only in the quality of Health Care available and the medical education provided, but also in its research output. By the time the University College Hospital was 30 years old, nearly 10 million patients had been treated there, while thousands of clinical student nurses and midwives, laboratory technologists, radiographers, medical record officers and several cadres of health workers have passed through its portals. At least a quarter of all doctors in practice in Nigeria today trained, researched or taught at Ibadan at one time or other. In addition to the undergraduate medical programme (based in the College of Medicine of the University of Ibadan, the UCH also provides training facilities for:

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