Obsolete and inadequate medical equipment render government-owned hospitals in Ogun State prostrate

By Yemisi Adeniran

Benjamin Okon, a Lagos-based building contractor and elder brother to Lynda Okon, an accident victim at the Ogun State General Hospital, Ijebu-Ode, has an axe to grind with the hospital management. His grouse has to do with not just the critical condition of his sister, but the substandard medical services available in the hospital.

“I thought government-owned hospitals are supposed to be a place of solace and adequacies for Nigerians regardless of their status,” Okon said,  affirming that the poor state of the hospital was contrary to his expectation.

Narrating his ordeal, Okon told this magazine of his experience in the hands of the Ijebu-Ode hospital management. On 20 January, Lynda, his only sister and a front-desk officer at a computer company on Lagos Island, boarded a 16-passenger bus to Lagos from Owerri, where she had spent the Christmas and New Year holidays. Her plan was to be in Lagos early enough to take some rest and prepare for work the next day. However, this was not to be, as she was involved in a ghastly accident a few kilometres from Lagos.

Their driver, TheNEWS gathered, was  in the usual haste for which Lagos commercial drivers are ill-reputed. So, he drove against traffic and collided with a trailer that was equally on high speed. The bus driver died instantly. But Lynda was lucky.She suffered multiple fracture on her back and legs and was rushed along with others to the state hospital, Ijebu-Ode, which was closest to the scene of the accident.

Unfortunately,  medical help that was anxiously expected was unavailable. Many of the injured persons were not promptly attended to, as some of the consultants who were said to be living many kilometres away from the hospital could not be reached. More painful was the fact that relatives of victims had to procure every drug and materials needed for treatment. In other words, victims whose relatives could not be easily reached were literally abandoned.

The following day, when this magazine visited the hospital, Lynda was already conscious and was receiving treatment under the watchful eyes of her brother. If Lynda was lucky to have survived, albeit with multiple fracture, Richard Obiefule was not. Obiefule, 34, a staff of Zenith Bank, sat in the front seat of the same doomed bus. When he was brought to the hospital, no serious treatment was given to him, perhaps because no relative of his was in sight.

While he writhed in pains from Sunday to Monday, Obiefule managed to put a call through to a close friend in Lagos, informing him of his critical condition.

“Please come and take me away from this place, because I am dying,” Steve Ogbemudia, his friend who spoke with TheNEWS, recalled Obiefule saying.

His friends and family members came to his rescue on Tuesday 22 January, and transferred him to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, Idi-Araba. There, it was discovered that Obiefule had a spinal-cord injury and had been bleeding internally for two days. He was rejected by LUTH and referred to Igbobi Orthopaedic Hospital, Yaba, Lagos.

From Igbobi, TheNEWS gathered, Obiefule was taken back to LUTH, where he finally gave up the ghost on Sunday 27 January, leaving behind a wife, two children and aged parents.

His friends and relatives, however, concluded that Obiefule’s death was the culmination of poor and inadequate treatment he got at the Ijebu-Ode hospital. “Had the hospital taken necessary medical steps, they would have discovered what was wrong with him on time and who knows, Richard may have made it,” observed Steve.

To aggravate the family’s grief, Zenith Bank with which Richard Obiefule worked until his death denied the family of any entitlements. As far as they were concerned, Obiefule was on contract.The bank also cited the fact that he was not on official assignment when the accident occurred.

The scenario at the state hospital, Ijebu-Ode is a representation of happenings in almost all government-owned hospitals in Ogun State visited by TheNEWS. Yet,  patients continually flood them every day.

All the 24 state hospitals in Ogun State are beset with similar problems, though in varying degrees. What is, however, peculiar to all of them is that they do not provide drugs for their patients. Drugs are merely prescribed for patients, who have to buy them on their own outside the hospital. The good thing about the hospitals, however, is that expectant mothers get treated free of charge. Children with certain ailments also get free medical services.

A staff-nurse at the Ijebu-Ode hospital who pleaded anonymity said inadequate personnel in the various departments topped the list of basic requirements lacking in the hospital.

“Consultants are not enough, we need more doctors and for my unit, Orthopedic, I would solicit for autonomy, as this would enhance  adequate care of the patients,” she averred.

Another grave problem the hospital faces is the haphazard functioning of its central power plant. Ironically, the generator, which has a capacity to provide adequate electricity for the entire hospital complex, is under-utilised. One of the attendants who simply identified himself as Idowu attributed the low performance of the generator to non-availability of fund.

“It only works for about 15 minutes to allow it to warm, so that it will not pack up totally. This is because, there is no money to buy diesel,” he declared.  To cut cost, the state government has provided a small generator for each unit in the hospital. These, however, are not as effective as the central plant which can power any equipment, no matter how high the voltage required.

Again, most of the rooms where patients are examined individually lack screens which would ensure privacy. Even stretchers are in short supply.  For the orthopedic ward, special beds which would provide comfort for patients with bone and spinal cord injuries are non-existent.  Other necessities like bed elevators, standard lockers with covers, bedsheets and pillows, medicine trolleys, dressing equipment and materials, artery forceps and many others are also lacking.

While advocating for more ambulances in respect of accident victims, Biola Ojo, a staff nurse at the Ijebu-Ode hospital commended the effort of Human Life Protection Association which provided three ambulances as their contribution to improving the standard of services in the hospital.