For some years now, public hospitals in Enugu state have been grappling with a severe crisis, ranging from inadequate infrastructure, understaffing and poor funding.
This is in spite of the fact that the immediate past administration of Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi has spent billions of naira to revitalize the system.
He went a step forward by providing Type 3 hospitals across many local council areas, yet the state of both the old and new hospitals leaves much to be desired.
WITHIN NIGERIA findings showed that this ugly situation has resulted in a significant decline in service quality.
Our investigations also showed that these challenges are widespread, affecting both primary health centres and state-owned tertiary hospitals, thereby leaving residents with limited access to reliable medical care.
However, for these challenges, many residents of the state are cannot access health care in most government hospitals, leaving them at the mercy of shylock private hospital owners.
Some of the hospitals visited showed a decaying infrastructure, lack of staff and drugs and poor working condition.
In any case, when our reporter visited Type 3 hospital Ibagwa-Aka, Igbo-Eze South local government area of Enugu, some of the staff were nowhere to be found by 9am.
One of the men in the premises who introduced himself as a security man told our reporter that the hospital is well equipped, but residents rarely come to access healthcare services.
However, a medical doctor in the hospital who spoke to our reporter under anonymity explained that the hospital lacks essential drugs to treat patients.
According to him, “we come to work every day, but the state government rarely supply us with drugs to treat patients. Some of them are asked to go to pharmaceutical shops to buy these drugs at a very exorbitant price.”
Lamenting further, he said that” it is very disheartening that the state government will spend billions to build this kind of state-of-the-art hospital, yet it cannot equip it with essential drugs.”
At General hospital, Nsukka, Enugu state, the situation is not different.
A nurse who spoke under condition of anonymity told WITHIN NIGERIA that ” we have doctors here. They come to work every day. But our major issue here is lack of drugs. We don’t have enough supply of drugs here.”
Explaining further, the senior nurse told our reporter that ” even though our infrastructure is decaying every day, the government keeps on promising for the upgrading and replacement, yet we don’t see anything coming. My concern here is that private hospitals are milking on our poor citizens who are supposed to be accessing healthcare in government hospitals.”
When our reporter visited General Hospital Lejja, Nsukka local government area of Enugu state, the roof of one of the major buildings have been pulled off by rainstorm.
A nurse told our reporter that the roof had been in that condition for over half a decade and both state and local government have turned their blind eyes on it.
At Orji River general hospital, Oji River local government area, the situation looked even worse.
All the buildings in the premises have been taken over by grasses.
A first time visitor will assume he/she is on the wrong path if not for the signpost conspicuously mounted at the entrance of the hospital.
When our reporter visited the hospital, no single staff was seen at 10am on Tuesday morning.
At Uwani general hospital at Enugu metropolis, more there are many patients waiting to be attended to.
A staff of the hospital who spoke to our reporter under anonymity explained that ” we lack drugs here. We also lack some infrastructure like electricity or light.”
Enugu state reacts on the poor condition of health centres
However, reacting to the ugly incident the State Government has said it is making good efforts to increase enrollment into its Universal Health Coverage scheme with a view to improving residents’ access to affordable healthcare services.
The statement was made recently by the Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the Enugu State Agency for Universal Health Coverage, Edith Okolo, on Tuesday during a multi-stakeholder implementation meeting in Enugu.
According to Okolo, some residents initially doubted the scheme because of the relatively low annual premium and the range of healthcare services covered.
“Some people think it is a scam to access healthcare with just N12,000 per year, but we are getting positive testimonies from beneficiaries who paid N12,000 and accessed healthcare services successfully,” she said.
She explained that health insurance remained mandatory under the National Health Insurance Authority law and the Enugu State Health Sector Reform Law.
“We are trying to appeal to people by showing them the benefits instead of enforcing it immediately, but our next stage will involve enforcement measures,” she said.
She also disclosed that the agency planned to introduce health insurance certificates for businesses as part of licensing requirements.
She added that beneficiaries would also receive free consultations, laboratory tests, drugs, surgeries and hospital admissions covered under the package.
“It also covers surgeries such as appendectomy and caesarean section, with up to 20 days of hospital admission for surgical cases and 15 days for medical cases,” se stated.
