Healing homes in need of care (1)

April 24, 2014 by Our Correspondents

   

 

One of the structures in LUTH, Inside one of the toilets at the General Hospital in Ijebu-Igbo, The Civil Service Clinic, Ilorin, Kwara State, The Adeoyo Hospital, Yemetu, Ibadan, Oyo State

The state of the facilities in many public hospitals in Nigeria does not support good health care delivery, BUKOLA ADEBAYO writes, additional reports by Femi Atoyebi, Success Nwogu and Sodiq Oyeleke

Look at those buildings and those wards. What do they remind you of?”

The doctor acting as a guide to our correspondent abruptly stopped and asked as they passed through one of the wards of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba. They were heading for the Accident and Emergency Unit of the popular hospital.

 While she (our correspondent) was still searching for the words to describe the shabby structures, the doctor pointed at, he answered, “Does it not look like one of our police barracks – or those overcrowded prisons? Can you imagine that is where patients are expected to get better?”

Her observation could not be far from the truth. The maternal and child ward which the doctor singled out could as well be mistaken for an abandoned building by a first time visitor to LUTH.

Though the teaching hospital has performed several ground-breaking surgeries and has trained an appreciable population of the nation’s outstanding doctors over the years, it is reeling under infrastructural challenges. For one, the outlook of some of its wards leave nothing to be desired.

Our correspondent who later visited the hospital observed that there were no windows in some wards. Some did not have nets and those that had were torn.

Patients on admission also complained bitterly about the beggarly conditions they were made to live in the hospital’s wards.

One of them, who spoke with this reporter at the female ward, said they were at present battling with insects, rats and some lizards which  come and go into the wards.

She said, “You can see that there are no nets. I have more than 15 spots of mosquito bite on my body. LUTH mosquitoes, eh! They can kill oh!  They have infested everywhere. Also, rats and lizards come in through the window and drag our things away.”

“Our major problem is the rain. When it rained around last week, I woke up in the night.  I was drenched with water – my clothes, drugs everything wet!

“The rain was pouring anyhow through windowless windows. We had to stay outside till the rain stopped. Nobody had a good night sleep throughout that week.”

Some of the patients were also seen using hand fans to blow themselves as no fans were installed in some wards.

In fact, many of the women were in their underwear (brassieres and panties), not minding the fact that it was visiting hours,  while some tied wrappers to cope with the heat.

They lamented that it was not unusual for them to go without any form of electricity supply for days.

One of them said, “We are perpetually left in darkness. I only wish that the Chief Medical Director will pass a night here. Then he/she will have a clear idea of what it means to pass a night in a prison.

‘Many of these roofs you are looking at are leaking. Once it starts raining, we pack our things and start looking for other wards where the leak is not bad.

“We even collect the rain water to have our baths. We use it to wash because I have been here for three weeks and I can say that we have not had a single drop of water from the tap in the toilets. Those who can afford it pay people to fetch water for us.”

Efforts to speak with the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Prof. Akin Oshibogun proved abortive as several calls placed to his calls and text messages did not go through.

However, it was observed  that major renovations were on going at various wards, student hostels and administrative buildings in LUTH.

Further investigations by our correspondents who visited and even slept in some wards in government-owned hospitals in Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Kwara states show that the nations’ ‘healing homes’ are on the verge of collapse and are in need of healing and care.

Living conditions in the hospitals which include the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, Osun State; Adeoyo State Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State; the Civil Service Clinic, Ilorin, Kwara State; and Ijebu- Igbo, General Hospital , Ogun State, show that decay is now a norm in these health institutions .

Ijebu-Igbo hospital: Patients prefer bush to toilet

Sanitary and environmental conditions in many of these public hospitals have been compromised.  For instance, toilets and bathrooms at the wards in Ijebu-Igbo General Hospital, were not only broken beyond repair, they were covered with decaying plants and dirt.

The walls of the wards which were once painted white were caking into brown dusts, attracting termites into the facility. The hospital was also surrounded by bushes when our correspondent took a sick relative to the hospital in March.

Patients were being treated on rickety beds that could give way under the weight of their occupants. In the ward where the journalist and her relative were admitted, there was no functional toilet or fans for ventilation.

One of the patients said they do not bother with the toilet facilities in the hospital: They would rather use the bushes around.

“That toilet is meant for rats and cockroaches – not human beings. They keep saying they would repair it but I have yet to see any repair. In fact, we just ease ourselves in the bush and come back.”

Also, the ceiling had caved in in some places and there were naked electric cables running through the rooms. The windows were broken,  giving much access for reptiles and insects to come in at will but leaving the patients in these wards unprotected.

A patient on admission alleged that intruders usually come in through those windows to steal from them at night.

She said, “When I first came here, the others (patients) told me to keep my things in a locked drawer because they could get missing at any time as they had been robbed several times.”

Water did not flow throughout our correspondent’s stay.

When she complained about the lack of ventilation and water supply in the wards, the nurses on duty said they had not had light for weeks to pump water and the generator had broken down, hence they (the patients) should manage the situation for now.

The following morning, our correspondent witnessed an argument between a man whose daughter was on admission and one of the doctors on duty.

He was demanding that his daughter be referred to another hospital in Lagos as she could no longer cope with the poor conditions in the ward.

OAUTH: Old, old medical equipment

The Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital , Ile-Ife, Osun State is not left out in the myriad of poor facilities that now define  public hospitals in the country. Though  the hospital can lay claim to some successful operations, it still suffers from inadequate facilities.

On  Tuesday when our correspondent visited the hospital, some patients, who were waiting to see the doctor,  were seen sitting on the floor and under the trees due to lack of chairs

Some patients on wheelchairs were also seen receiving drips at the various corridors of the hospital. The emergency rooms where the patients were supposed to be treated was filled up and choked up.  Most of the relatives in the wards had hand fans which they   used to blow air to the patients.

Asked why many patients were left unattended to, one of the drivers of the ambulance buses responded, “The emergency room is filled up and there are not enough doctors. A majority of the people are nurses. Another thing is that there is no electricity, so it is better for them to stay outside for fresh air.”

There was also no electricity supply throughout the paediatric ward which was half empty. A mother said people had deserted the ward due to the poor state of facilities.

She said, “The problem is that people don’t always want to bring their children to this place. The doctors are good but the facilities are too poor. If you go up, you will see that the roofing is damaged. What a majority of us do is to come here for treatment and return home.”

However, a top official in the Engineering Department of the OAUTH told to our correspondent that most of the generators at the hospital needed to be repaired and upgraded.

“Our electricity supply is just like what we have all over Nigeria. The problem is that they need to be changed  them ( pointing to where the abandoned generators were kept).”

A medical doctor in the hospital also confided in our correspondent that the hospital had too many obsolete medical equipment.

“It has not been so easy being a doctor here. They have the personnel but we treat patients with old equipment. Most of them have rusted due to neglect while others have been overused and need to be changed. I wish something urgent can be done.”

Decaying Civil Service Clinic in Ilorin

Despite its proximity to the Government House, the  Kwara State  Police Headquarters, the Governor’s Lodge, the state High Court and other courts, and many other corporate offices, the Civil Service Clinic at the GRA in Ilorin, lies in a dilapidated state.

When our correspondent visited the clinic on Wednesday, the outlook of the hospital screamed neglect. Even doctors complained that the facilities were dilapidated and most of the medical equipment were not functioning.

“ Most of the tests we do are carried out outside the hospital. We have no functioning laboratory equipment in the facility again. We hope that they would remember this clinic.”

 Residents are calling on the state Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed,  to give the hospital a face lift, provide personnel and infrastructure that it urgently needs.

A resident who spoke,  on condition of anonymity, stressed that the hospital desperately needs more staff and equipment.

He said, “It is a shame that a public hospital which looks like an abandoned building is still existing beside the Government House. It is even closer to the house of the former governor,  Abubakar Bukola. Yet , it has not got any attention.”

When contacted on Wednesday, the state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Tunji Moronfoye,  said the clinic would be among the next hospitals to be renovated and equipped.

“We know that the state civil service clinic is not in good condition. It is slated to be among the next five hospitals that would be renovated. It is among the second batch which we are going to embark upon very soon.”

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Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE

Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner