Abuja — THE Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Dr. Peter Alabi, yesterday disclosed that an estimate of N400 million is needed for the ongoing expansion of the Accident Emergency/Intensive Care Unit of the hospital.

He said the need to expand the unit of the hospital become necessary due to the upsurge cases of road accidents, which he said sometimes leads to congestion of victims and over stretching of existing facilities in the hospital.

According to him, quantity surveyors have valued the construction of the proposed unit at the cost of N400 million, saying the first phase of the project has reached almost 35 percent of completion.

"The emergency unit which is expected to be completed by the end of this year will be furnished and provided with modern hospital equipment and other facilities in order to continue to sustain good service delivery to patients," he added.

He further stated that the hospital's management has made submissions to the Federal Ministry of Health in its 2010 budget, requesting for an expansion of the hospital's morgue.

The chief medical director lamented that the mortuary which was built about twenty years ago is now been over stretched due to the high numbers of corpses dropped by officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission.

"As you rightly observed, the hospital's mortuary was built about 20 years ago, and is now over stretched due to high accidents cases along the Abuja-Lokoja highway," he explained.

He disclosed that other ongoing projects at the hospital include 18 blocks of rooms/offices as well as conference rooms started three months ago.

The medical director called on the federal government to give priority attention to dualising Abuja-Lokoja expressway because of the high death rates recorded along the road.