SIR: There is no doubt that Nigeria is passing through a difficult time in every facet of its life. It is not hard to comprehend why President Muhammadu Buhari always seeks medical help abroad. If the President of Nigeria does not believe in Nigeria’s health system, how could the citizens trust the system? Unfortunately, as citizens, we do not have an alternative, many of us do not have the means to patronise private hospitals, nor do we have the wherewithal to seek medical help abroad. It is not news that general hospitals in existence in name only while many of the private hospitals are mere money-making ventures preying on the wellbeing of the people. It is more disturbing when teaching hospitals are failing in their core responsibilities of providing top-notch health training and health delivery.
The catalogue of woes and trauma many Nigerians have experienced have been narrated through different media, but nothing seems to have improved – it is a situation of no one cares, no one listens. Several people, like my father, have died of treatable illness for the lack of personnel, proper diagnosis, fake drugs, and prompt access to treatment. If doctors were determined to embark on surgery, in the case of my father, without diagnosis and test result, what would they achieve if in their own medical opinion, it is ‘when we cut him, we would find out the problem’. If test results, duly paid for are not available for several weeks in a teaching hospital, how would patents receive appropriate treatment?
It is traumatising again to see my mother currently being subjected to similar situation at the same place – Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, a supposedly tertiary level hospital set up to train medical personnel, where care, compassion and communication seem to have disappeared from their services. It is not just shameful but unprofessional that OOUTH would ask the family to complete personal care and administer medication to the parent in the hospital care. One begins to wonder, what then are the roles of nurses, carers if families were to be performing these core tasks? It is barbaric and disturbing to see OOUTH to be tying patients’ hands and legs to their beds simply because such patients are confused due to urinal infections. Before anyone say unbelievable, there are photo-proofs of these unprofessional practices.
Beyond sentiment and unnecessary emotional outburst, what should be of concern of the government is not just the wellbeing of the president but that of every Nigerian. The health of Nigerians is limited and deteriorating because of the leadership failure and its reluctance to accept the social, economic, and environmental causes of ill health. If we are to achieve a long-term improvement in the health of the nation, it is crucial and compelling that we target resources to deal with both downstream and upstream issues that stand in our way to access simple medical treatment. It is shameful and counterproductive for Nigerian leaders to be seeking medical treatment abroad while they claim they are investing in the nation’s health delivery system. The frequent foreign medical trips of the president, governors, ministers, members of the national and state assemblies as well as other politicians are just another way of telling the international community that Nigeria has failed her citizens.
Like many other Nigeria’s teaching hospitals, OOUTH used to be a model in the past, it was a teaching hospital with compassion and care, where patients’ wellbeing was paramount to staff. What has changed in the last few years urgently needs attention by the state government. Granted, brain drain has affected Nigeria’s health sector, but the Ogun State government can do a lot to stem the tide. The government should be serious, at least for once, to return the pride of OSUTH by beaming searchlight on its operation, by providing not just adequate but more compassionate personnel, by providing the resources that the staff need to do their job because the health of the people, is the wealth of the state.
- Tola Osunnuga, Ph.D.
Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State.