More patients are being abandoned in hospitals. Some blame it on the economic downturn; others describe it as a ploy by patients’ families to evade payment . Hospital administrators are worried by the development and are calling on public-spirited individuals and corporate organisations for help . WALE ADEPOJU writes
•Fate of abandoned patients in need of succour
It is not in the character of Nigerians to abandon their relatives in the hospital or on the street. But this is common these days.
Many sick people have been abandoned in hospital, creating the problem of space and care. Now the hospitals think twice before admitting new patients.
Hospitals have been experiencing an increase in the number of abandoned patients.
At the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), no fewer than 10 destitute and abandoned patients are housed and catered for.
One of them, Nofisat Balogun, was picked up by the Lagos State Ambulance Service (LASAMBUS) a few months ago. Her family members are yet to come for her. Nofisat is mentally deranged and she needs social support to overcome her ordeal but she is all by herself in the ward.
An abandoned patient, Mr Ayobami Ade, has been receiving treatment at LASUTH. Nobody has been in touch with him or sees to his welfare aside his friend who visited him once or twice. Not even his parents have come to see him.
He said he was staying in Mushin with his friend before he came down with a ruptured hernia. So far, he has incurred a N250, 000 bill.
Ayobami claimed his father is in Cotonou, Benin Republic, doing business; his mother resides in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State. He wants kind hearted people to come to his aid.
Since Esther Chima (not real name), who is living with HIV, was brought to LASUTH, nobody has come to visit her. She is in need of regular blood transfusion because she is also suffering from acute anaemia.
The hospital said there was a need for a place for people like her, as a social welfare intervention.
Another abandoned patient, Mr Moses Asuquo, who hails from Ikot Ayan Ntam in Ito Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, said he was hit by a vehicle while trying to cross the road to buy some food and ended up losing consciousness before a Good Samaritan brought him to LASUTH on November 30, last year.
The social welfare officer in charge of his case said he fractured his tibia and fibula bone on his left leg. Asuquo says he needs help to overcome his plight.
The story of 25-year-old Tirimi Misiyu, who is from Ibadan, Oyo State, is similar to that of Asuquo. He, too, was hit by a vehicle and had fractures of femur and humerus, and bruises on December 31, last year.
Writhing in pain, he explained how it all happened. “I had gone to buy food very near my house and I was knocked down by a hit-and-run vehicle before I was taken to the hospital. I was attended to immediately at the Surgical Emergency ward of LASUTH.”
The Chief Medical Director, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Prof Akin Osibogun, said there are poor and abandoned patients in the hospital, adding that the hospital usually tries to support them as much as possible, but at a cost.
He said there is a platform called the Friends of the Needy through which public spirited individuals can contribute some money to support indigent patients. But the donations are not usually enough and as such cannot solve all the problems.
The hospital, he said, sometimes, has to canvass help to treat them and even waive some of their bills, adding that some churches sometimes pay for them.
He appealed to well-meaning individuals, corporate bodies and organisations to come to the aid of the indigent patients.
The Chief Medical Director, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Prof Wale Oke said no fewer than 10 destitute is in the hospital.
The number, he added, varies from time to time, depending on where they are brought from.
He said: “Destitute are in two categories. There are those found on the streets which LASAMBUS usually finds either unconscious or knocked down by vehicles, and are brought to the hospital. And of course, there is no way to find out who they are because most times they don’t have any form of identification and the policy of the state is to ensure they must get treatment, irrespective of their status, and the hospital does and always renders surgical or medical treatment. It also helps in the purchase of drugs and x-rays are also carried out free.
“The policy of Lagos State is that anybody that comes in as casualty must be given maximum benefit of care that anybody can have. They have all these done. Some die and some of them recover and the medical social services of the hospital now take over to see whether they can find the relations or an address where such patients originate from but most of the times we never get to find out who they are or where they are coming from. These destitute are not only adults, but sometimes babies are abandoned and are brought to the hospital. But most times they are adults picked up on the street and are usually male.”
The other kind of destitute, Oke said, are those considered as being destitute. “They are patients who come in and who have known address and to some extent are able to pay for their treatment and suddenly the relations just stop coming.
“Sometimes the medical social services get frustrated in the process because they try to go and look for their address and find that the address given to the hospital doesn’t exist,” he said.
Oke said patients who know the policy of Lagos State might also tell their relations to stop coming to avoid paying their medical bills.
This, he said, usually happens when they are aware of the date they will be discharged. “And of course before discharge they are expected to pay for the bills accumulated but if we can’t find anybody to come for them they will declare themselves as destitute. Those are the challenges but so far the state has provided succour for them that they are given treatment because we don’t want anybody to die in the hospital or suffer needlessly in the hospital because he doesn’t have money. The state policy supports and encourages that such patients are treated,” Oke said.
He said what he does sometimes is to allow them go when they get well. “Some of them will make a promise that they will come back but very few actually do so. But that, we put under the free health policy. It is tight, but we just have to do it because we don’t want people to die.
“The free health care they benefit from comes from the state through the internally generated revenue (IGR) and if you spend money and you don’t get it back it constitutes some form of loss. But we have been able to adapt and cope. If we get well-meaning people to donate money to the hospital that we can use to defray such bills, it will be very useful,” he added.
Oke said there are hospitals, which have Alaanu Fund, and well-meaning Nigerians and Lagosians donate to it. “Some will say in the memory of my late father or mother I feel positively disposed towards helping the hospital I donate N200, 000.
“If you have N1.2million you can put in a fixed deposit account and the family can say every month the interest generated from that money should be spent on poor patients.
Some hospitals, he said, may spend only N50, 000 on each patient so that many people can benefit from it.
Head, Corporate Affairs, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Mrs Hope Nwawolo, said relations of some patients are to blame because, “they will bring their ward to the hospital and abandon them there.”
She said some said it was because of medical bill.
Nwawolo said their continued stay in the hospital is obstructing space. This is so because if the wards are full we can’t ask them to vacate their beds, she added.
Director, Medical Patients Services, LASUTH, Mrs Olaide Latinwo, said the hospital has a lot of destitute and indigent patients coming to the hospital for treatment.
On their motive, she said: “Some will come and we discover they are destitute who need help and we can’t just throw them out. We often help them through the hospital management.
“There are some who will be paying but the moment they have big issues, you will discover that they will be abandoned.”
Latinwo said as medical and social workers, they always find the genuinity of their condition as destitute before they are allowed to get free treatment. “We usually visit them during the visiting hours to know if there are people seeing them. We also check their addresses among other information.
“But we realise that many of them tell lies all in a bid to get free treatment. Some of their family members will deny knowing them so that they are not held responsible or asked to pay,” she added.
She said well-meaning people should come to the hospital to help them, adding that more public spirited persons are welcomed.
Latinwo said the hospital will soon have a Alaanu (Charity) Fund for the indigent and destitute accessing care in the hospital.
