Health

Confronting the rot in LUTH By Hope Eghagha

/ Adeola / 3 Comments

Culled from the Nigerian Guardian August 5 2008

AS we try to define ourselves as a nation, there are certain institutions that ought to stand firmly and serve as centres of excellence. No nation worth its salt ought to toy with the health of the people. One of the institutions I grew up to meet as an excellent health centre is Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) Idi Araba. Its name was a dread, as the final arbiter on health matters. I remember the first time my General physician referred me to LUTH, the question that cropped to my lips was: ‘Am I in such a terrible shape? This was back in the 1990s. I reluctantly went, endured the slow pace, incompetence but eventually went home smiling. Since then I have had cause to go to LUTH on visits on several occasions. My ears had always tingled with stories of gross and criminal inefficiency in that ‘centre of excellence’. I was a distant observer until the events of June 23, 2008.

A husband and his wife, Israel and Viviane Emuophe, vibrant and hopeful in the abundance of life offered by life were knocked down by a drunk driver on Sunday the 22nd of June right in front of a house along Lekki/Ajah road where they had gone visiting. Good Samaritans rushed them to a clinic nearby. The wife, a Youth Corps member serving in Lagos State and eight months pregnant was badly wounded on her lower limb. As for the man, we found out later that he was fractured on both legs. The doctor in the temporary hospital in Ajah advised that the limb be amputated immediately. Instead of referring the patients to LUTH or Igbobi for specialist intervention, he kept them there throughout the night. He was more interested in his hefty fees (over a hundred thousand naira for stabilising them overnight!). Friends and relations on the ground advised against outright amputation. In their view, such a decision should be taken at Igbobi. The patients were moved to Igbobi early the next morning. Igbobi advised that the lady be taken to LUTH. That was where we encountered criminal inefficiency and neglect of the first order.

The lady arrived at LUTH at about 10 in the morning. It took the intervention of a retired Matron in LUTH for the victim to receive minimal attention in the Emergency Unit. We were asked to buy almost everything that was needed to treat an emergency case. We patiently did. The decision was announced that there would be surgery. The patient was moved to the theatre. As at 4p.m., nothing concrete had been done. That was when we decided (Dr. Clement Edokpayi and I) to call up some of our colleagues who work in LUTH. We also called up people in town who had some influence in the health sector to reach people in the management of LUTH. A matron on duty gave a false report to one of our contacts that the lady was already in the theatre. I countered that immediately. We found out that as at that time, there had been no official communication with any of the consultants to handle the job. Our intervention worked. The doctors showed up.

We started the process of getting this and getting that. At about 9.30p.m. when all was set for the surgery, we were told that an x-ray had not been done. She was wheeled back to the x-ray room where I confronted the Professor in charge. His explanation was plausible. Except cases are referred to him, he cannot do an x-ray. Finally, the x-ray was done and at this time we were only interested in saving the life of the lady. Her baby we suspected was gone. Her little cries of ‘I want my life’, made it imperative for some action to take place. Surgery intervention finally took place at about 12 midnight. My little Christian sister lost both her right limb and her eight month pregnancy.

My position is that in LUTH the simple routines and procedures expected have been compromised. Nobody is in charge. No doubt, the consultants and doctors are efficient. In their private clinics, they do very well. LUTH is currently a carcass of itself. This is not the LUTH that the wife of a Head of State patronised when she was going to have her baby in the 1970s. The equipment is obsolete. LUTH is a danger to health care. The entire institution is a mortuary. Death smells around the wards. In the Modular Theatre, referred to as one of the best in the country, surgery could not take place there because there was no back up to power supply. Most of our colleagues we discussed the matter with simply agreed that the place needs to be overhauled. The concept of management currently in place should go. Who will overhaul LUTH?

Indeed LUTH is a victim of the corruption which has steadily crept into the country. The Obasanjo administration announced and launched new equipment for LUTH with fanfare. As we have found out, it was a fluke. None of those items deserves to be called modern. They were second hand, or Tokunboh bought for the purpose of making money for the boys.

LUTH needs to be thoroughly reorganised, re-structured, re-ordered. A new management that can enforce its rules should be put in place. If a patient comes in at 10 a.m. and does not receive attention until 4p.m., somebody should be penalised for it. This should be routine as it is in the medical profession. We do not need to report to SERVICOM for nurses and doctors to do their jobs. Most of the nurses are so indifferent to patients that I wonder where they were trained. During my last visit to the female surgical ward there was a breast cancer patient who kept howling for the duration of my visit. The nurse kept passing her by. I was told that she had been in that condition for three days. Where has the human spirit gone in LUTH?

The Minister of Health or the Federal Executive Council ought to intervene directly in LUTH. Management is practically dead in the place. Most of the consultants are first rate when they have to work outside LUTH. However, they work in an environment that lacks the basic tools. They cannot perform magic. Sadly, the available equipment is not efficiently utilised. This is the crux of the matter. There is too much indifference in the place. Too many patients die from lack of care and attention. Too many people are dissatisfied with working conditions.

It is very easy to give explanations and rationalise our inadequacies. I expect that LUTH would soon issue a rejoinder claming that its facilities are excellent and that staff are doing their best. But the truth is that no one who has the means takes his relation to LUTH. They simply go abroad. Perhaps this is at the core of the problem. The people who are in power do not patronise the hospital. German and American hospitals wait for them. Even our President has no faith in LUTH. But is a turn-around of LUTH not possible that would make the First Citizen of the country patronise it when next he is ill? With the necessary will, it is possible. This is all I ask for so that another young lady or man would not lose precious life or limb or both.

MAY 29 2007-MAY 29 2008:Another Year Wasted!

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Adeola Aderounmu.

It’s been one full year since an illegitimate government was installed or enthroned in Nigeria. One can easily be deceived that Nigeria is ungovernable because of the divergence of people, opinions, cultures, attitudes and size of the country. But Nigeria is not the only country that is diverse in such many ways.

What is missing and what has eluded Nigeria is sincerity of purpose on the parts of the political class and the useless military that have plunged the country since 1960. To this day, a typical Nigerian politician is a looter and an opportunist. All he or she is aspiring towards is self-betterment and personal enrichment. The other aspects of him/ her are deceit and pure hypocrisy.

Corruption remains the main thing in Nigeria-our biggest ailment. Politicians continue to loot and milk-away the country to dryness. They are never prosecuted and when they are prosecuted, they walk away with total freedom after a deceitful trial and bail session. Who is fooling who? All the ex and serving politicians who have stolen monies from the national treasury are still enjoying their loots while the rest of us suffer, just like that!

Millions of dollars continue to disappear from the treasury daily under shady and covered deals. Nothing is done to improve the standard of living in the country. What is the essence of the few flashes of magnificent buildings in Abuja when it is made only for a negligible part of the population? Those things in Abuja mean nothing and they serve no purpose to more than 90m people living below poverty line and surviving on less than 2 dollars a day.

Nigeria needs 100 000 MW of power but she is generating less than 1 000 MW. How can a sane mind explain this? One year after the illegitimate coming of Umaru Yar Adua, power supply has gone worse. Those who stole and mismanaged billions of dollars that were earmarked for electricity development in the past 8 years are living as freemen. What a country? Those kinds of people belong in life-time jail because their negligence has sent thousands to the grave beyond. Their ineptitudes have destroyed lives and homes. They have spread sadness in the land, and the sadness and darkness persist to this day-May 29 2008 and beyond.

In other aspects of our lives as Nigerians, we are on our own while the government continues to operate at a frequency that does not tally with the expectations of the masses. The governments in Nigeria do not care about the Nigerian people. The politicians are thieves in disguise. They lie to the people and they rigged their way into power. Imagine this very wicked gang led by Yar Adua asking the people to pay more for electricity which is not even available in the first place. Absolute nonsense and senselessness!

In Nigeria, nobody cares if you have water to drink or if you “hunger to death”. Nothing is plan and nothing is in focus. The hospitals are not functioning to optimum level. Even the illegitimate president goes to Germany for treatment of his own ailment. What a shameless man? Why didn’t he build any hospital in Katsina State when he was a governor FOR 8 WHOLE YEARS? Has anyone thought about that?

Housing is an issue that is not tabled in the Nigerian government agenda. I don’t remember the last time estates or residential areas were designed and executed in that country. It is up to you as an individual to loot somewhere and build your own house. Only very few people can work legitimately to achieve such noble dreams. Majority do it at the expense of other people who must suffer. Rare and Scanty Mortgage houses are up for the rich and mighty. Where is the hope of the common man?

This country Nigeria is known worldwide as a producer of oil. Yet in a very shameful way, Nigerians continues to import petroleum products for use in Nigeria. The refineries are not working at all or they are working inefficiently. All these years of talking and talking, these civilian and military idiots in power cannot do something to build new refineries or make the available ones work maximally/ optimally. How many shameful things and mad acts can one see in governance by these gangsters?

Really, hopelessness persists. Look at the network of roads. Highways are in terrible conditions and all tiers of governance are looking the other way. Nigerian roads are terribly, terribly bad and annoying. Expressways have become snail-ways. Rather than settle down to work, these senseless politicians go about jumping from one country to another. They move from one hotel to another and from one useless function to another. They don’t even know what they are doing. Absolute scalar quantities!

The Nigerian people too do not even know their rights at all. They are just doing follow-follow. Many political thieves are still waiting for their own opportunities to steal and loot directly and indirectly. In general, the lack of purposeful leadership and the presence of a powerless followership are rubbing this country of her greatness. What is left of Nigeria is individual’s will to succeed at any cost. If you take away self-will, there is no country left to call Nigeria.

How long shall we complain about all these ills before we begin to see remarkable changes that will touch the lives of more than the 140m people? How long before corrupt politicians are sentenced to prisons? When will thieves in political offices be shown the way out? When will violence stop and when will the votes be counted? How many more fuel pipeline explosions are we going to have this year?

Who will save our souls?

Our Lives in our hands…

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By Adeola Aderounmu.

If Umaru Yar’Adua keeps flying to Germany every other day for medical checkups and randomized treatments, there is definitely no hope yet for the Nigerian masses plagued by poverty and very serious health infirmities. If the one in whom we entrust our health care seeks succour beyond the borders of Nigeria (and in fact Africa) then the rest of us must know that our lives are in our hands.

Shame which is a virtue in Nigerian politics is the only word that I found to describe this action of the number one citizen in Nigeria. It is a clear revelation of the gross incompetence of Umaru not just as an individual but as an administrator or ex-governor. For example, if I was the former governor of Katsina State for 8 years, I would have used my influence and position to build a specialized hospital to take care of my peculiar health needs. By so doing, I would have provided a unique opportunity for other people who have the same or similar problems within my state and elsewhere in Nigeria.

Really, how much can it cost to facilitate the building of such a specialized hospital at the federal level supposing the cost of building it surpasses the state health allocations for 8 years? If that was the only achievement in Katsina State’s Department of Health between 1999 and 2003, would it have been a selfish gain? Does it require the building of a new hospital to take care of Umaru’s special needs? Was any attempt made to incorporate what he needs into an existing health institution anywhere in Nigeria?

We must constantly remind ourselves of some unforgivable/ severe shortcomings of the people who lead us in Nigeria. Umaru is definitely bringing shame to Nigeria with this particular attitude of his. For instance, how does this flying out for health reason help Nigeria in terms of enticing foreign investors to Nigeria? In 21st century Global Village scenario, Nigeria cannot provide electricity to run businesses and Umaru is making it clear that the health of Nigerians and foreigners in Nigeria cannot be catered for in Nigeria.

My humble advice is that Umaru should with immediate effect lay a foundation in Abuja for the construction of the carbon copy of that hospital that he is always running or flying to in Germany. He should also make sure that the hospital is completed in a world record timing without neglecting regulations, standards and safety. In addition, he should ensure that replicas are constructed in at least 6 other places spread over Nigeria.

When that is done, Umaru should personally work closely with the Federal Ministry of Health to ensure that the hospitals are equipped not only with the state of art facilities but also with the best hands in Nigeria. If there is a need to recall Nigerian doctors or experts from the Middle East, Australia or the US then let it be done. We cannot possibly succumb to any form of inferiority complex that Nigerian doctors are not better than those in Germany. It is part of government’s responsibilities to provide the infrastructure and the environment that will facilitate optimum output and efficiency.

If that kind of specialized hospital that exists in Germany is found in Nigeria and if our best doctors work there at home, Umaru would have no need to fly 6 hours in air just to see a doctor or the edifice itself. Afterall, Nigerian doctors are among the best in the world and they are scattered all over planet earth. The other day I was treated by a Nigerian doctor at the Famous Karolinska Hospital here in Stockholm. He told me he is from the old Bendel State and that he had been living and working outside Nigeria since the mid 70s!

These pieces of advice can serve as the stepping stones for the revamping of Nigeria’s ailing health industry. Without setting up any tea drinking or money-dividing committee, there are possibilities to establish, develop and maintain viable health policies that will work for all and sundry in Nigeria.

It is not too much to ask that the health industry must work. A healthy nation is a wealthy nation. Nigerians must stop the shameful seeking of basic health care from neighbouring countries and the confidence that we have in our health institutions and health providers can only be restored if the leadership truly leads by desirable examples.