Dr. Ikrama Hassan is the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the Nassrawa State-owned Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (DASH), Lafia. He was born on 13th November, 1977 in Lafia, Lafia Local Government Area of Nassrawa State. He had his early education at Housing Unit Primary School, Lafia, where he obtained his First School Leaving Certificate. Upon completion of his elementary education, Dr. Ikrama Hassan got admitted into Federal Science College, Sokoto, Sokoto State and passed out in flying colours. His quest for more knowledge took him to the famous Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto where he graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB,BS) in 2004, after which he proceeded to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and University of Ibadan, obtaining a Master in Public Health and a Fellow of the West African College of Physicians (Consultant) between 2012 and 2014 respectively.
Dr. Ikrama Hassan also holds a Certificate in Performance-Based Management Financing from the World Bank/Oxford Policy Management and Certificate in Health Strengthening and Sustainable Financing from the World Bank Institute, Washington DC, USA, all between 2016-2017.
He is a research-oriented Community Physician, Health Administrator, and results-oriented leader with 16 years of work experience. He is currently the Chief Medical Director of Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, the largest State-owned tertiary hospital that is into teaching, research, and clinical management. He has expertise in health policy, planning, and management. He has a special interest in health equity. He was the Program Manager for two World Bank-financed projects in Nasarawa State Nigeria that aimed to improve access and utilization of quality maternal and child health in Nigeria. He has worked in the public sector and coordinated partnerships of Non-governmental Organizations working on health system strengthening and improving health access. He has several high-level training in public health leadership both within and outside Nigeria. He has garnered vast experience in health planning, policy formulation and implementation, monitoring and evaluation, partnership, survey management, health financing, and research.
He was part of Nigeria’s National Strategic Health Development Plan as well as that of Nasarawa state. He initiated the policy memo and was part of the team that established a Social Health Insurance Scheme in Nasarawa State Nigeria. He was the Chairman of the Committee that designed the blueprint for the setup and utilization of the Nasarawa State Infectious Sisease and Research Center (NASIDARC). He has over the years exhibited commitment to strengthening the healthcare system and achieving Universal Health Coverage in Nasarawa State and Nigeria. He is a scholar in health policy, a Fellow of West African College of Physicians, and Senior Fellow of the International Program in Public Health Leadership, University of Washington, Seattle US.
The Chief Medical Director had before his current position worked as Director of Health, Planning, Research and Statistics in the State Ministry of Health between October 2016-July 2018 during which he oversaw health research, statistics, and health information system in Nasarawa State and also Provided leadership for the data quality assessment and integrated supportive supervision while also serving as Secretary of the Committee that developed the 2016-2021 State Strategic Development Plan as well as the 2016 and 2017 Annual Operational plans, among other responsibilities.
When he served between October 2015-July 2018 as the State Programme Officer for the Save One Million Lives Programme for Results (SOML) in the State Ministry of Health which was a $500 million World Bank project that aimed to improve maternal and child health utilization and quality in Nigeria, Dr. Ikrama Hassan coordinated and facilitated the Ministry’s activities related to SOML and ensured the timely collection of high-quality data and its publication/dissemination. He also implemented and oversaw fund utilization for targeted interventions, communicated and worked with the State Primary Health care Development Agency and Local Governments to develop and implement a communication plan, among others.
At another point (2015-2018) he was the Programme Manager, Nigeria State Health Investment Project also at the State Ministry of Health, during which he served as the Technical Adviser to the Hon. Commissioner of Health on planning, management, and monitoring of project activities. He reviewed reports of project activities in the Local Government Areas (LGAs) that were received through the State Technical Working Group, and gave feedback to the LGAs as well as reviewed the achievement of the State Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs) and the LGA DLIs, among other responsibilities.
He was also a HIV Prevention Officer at the State Ministry of Health between April-October 2015 and Public Health Physician at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (where he currently head) between April-October 2015. As HIV Prevention Officer, he was responsible for capacity-building activities such as adolescent education programs. These were component-specific programs, in which teachers and peer educators were trained and also undertook monthly supportive supervision as well as monitoring, evaluation, and mainstreaming of targeted interventions for high-risk groups such as Female Sex Workers (FSW), Men who have Sex with Men (MSM), Transgenders, and Injecting Drug Users (IDU) while as Public Health Physician, he worked in the area of decongesting the Specialist Hospital by setting up a comprehensive health center that catered for common ailments that should be treated at the primary care level, a development that led to an increase in the number of women being attended to and children being immunized by the hospital.
Dr. Ikrama Hassan has many research works to his credit and participated in other professional trainings within and outside Nigeria. He belongs to several professional bodies such as the Nigerian Medical Association, Medical and Dental Consultants of Nigeria, Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria, Epidemiological Society of Nigeria and International Epidemiological Association.
