Follow Us on Google
From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
Kaduna-based Islamic scholar, Sheik Ahmad Gumi, has noted that government hospitals, particularly those in Kaduna State are in deplorable state.
Sheik Gumi added that from what he saw at two government hospitals he visited in Kaduna, the Nigerian health sector had collapsed, with children dying due to preventable diseases.
The Islamic scholar had after Ramadan preaching on Saturday visited Gwamna Awon General Hospital in Kaduna South and Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital in Kaduna North.
In a statement by his media aide, Malam Tukur Mamu, shortly after the visit, Sheik Gumi called on the government, wealthy individuals to intervene and save the deplorable situation of the medical sector, just as he offered cash gifts to vulnerable patients on admission in the respective hospital.
“After leading the annual Ramadan preaching session at the famous Sultan Bello Mosque, Kaduna, for 30 days, Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Abubakar Mahmud Gumi on Saturday visited two major state-owned government hospitals in Kaduna.
“The visit exposed Sheikh Gumi to the enormous challenges vulnerable patients and their relatives are facing in a society where virtually everything has collapsed despite the increasing number of millionaires that mostly earned such favours/money through the government at all levels and using all forms of corrupt tendencies to accumulate at the expense of the suffering masses.
“The situation of the patients in all the two major hospitals is to say the least pathetic and indicting. Sheikh Gumi got a first hand knowledge about increasing number of children including infants mostly that are dying due to preventable and treatable sicknesses such as malaria and typhoid fever.”
A “greater number of the patents Sheikh Gumi saw did not even have money to feed themselves not to talk of afford medical expenses even on severe cases of emergency. Sadly too, emergency cases don’t receive the desired attention while critical medical evaluations and tests that are supposed to be done immediately and the result be out on time (for patients that have the resources to pay) are being delayed to as much as one and two weeks while decisions in case of patients that required emergency surgery etc are being unnecessarily delayed leading to deaths of patients in many occasion according to the testimony of the helpless patients.
“Shocked by the sad reality he saw, Sheikh Gumi couldn’t believe this is the country that has many billionaires most of them accumulating such wealth through undue favours from the government or as proceeds of corruption through appointments or contracts. He offered cash gifts and words of consolation to the patients and their relatives. While lamenting the situation, Sheikh Gumi told pressmen and the team that accompanied him that considering the enormity of the challenges of the poor patients he saw what he gave them is just a drop in an ocean.
“He urged governments at all levels to provide more facilities in public hospitals, make doctors accountable and responsive and provide a means of taking care of the hospital bills of vulnerable patients especially those on critical condition and on emergency cases.
“Sheikh Gumi then called on both the Federal and state governments to declare an emergency in the Nigerian health sector and lamented that so much about the condition of our hospitals and suffering patients is not being reported by the Nigeria media.”
