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… As doctors, nurses resign in droves
• We’ll identify challenges, implement reforms –FG
From Abubakar Yakubu, Abuja
Emergency and accident sections in hospitals are meant to attend promptly to cases of an emergency, where patients are either resuscitated or stabilised. But that was not the case with 64-year-old Steve Ude, a retired public servant who was involved in a domestic accident and was referred from Albert Horsefall Hospital to the Maitama District Hospital in Abuja on December 15, 2023.
•The Accident and Emergency unit of Maitama District hospital, Abuja.
According to Onyeka Ude, Steve’s cousin, it took a while at the district hospital’s emergency unit before a medical staffer approached his uncle to find out what the problem was and later placed a call to a doctor to come and attend to him.
He said when the doctor arrived, he told the patient that he was called in because the Urology consultant was on leave. “The doctor said he only came to refer us to the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi or the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital at Gwagwalada.”
The doctor, who was undergoing his housemanship at the hospital, declined to attend to the patient and wrote for him to be referred without any form of observation or treatment.
•Nyanya General Hospital onlyadmits children In the ward.
Our reporter was later to learn from a doctor, who pleaded anonymity, that the consulting urologist in the hospital had resigned and gone abroad for greener pastures.
Saturday Sun also discovered from medical staff members at Wuse, Asokoro, Nyanya, Gwarinpa, Karu, Bwari and Kubwa District/General Hospitals that the same problem of shortage of doctors and nurses exist there. At Nyanya General Hospital, only two nurses were seen attending to over a hundred patients at the General Outpatients Department. A nurse, who declined to have her name in print, said nurses and doctors are overstressed on a daily basis.
She said one doctor now does the work of about five of his colleagues. She also said nurses suffer more daily, adding that about five senior doctors and six nurses have so far left the services of the hospital for better offers abroad. The nurse blamed the poor salary scales for medical officers as well as the economic situation in the country as the major challenges affecting doctors and nurses.
“The stress of expensive transportation and house rents is seriously affecting us and it is very difficult for us to manage with the type of salaries we earn in this country. The salary mostly goes to pay for transportation,” she said.
She disclosed that Nyanya General Hospital only admits children into its ward, while male and female adults with very critical health problems are placed on observation to be stabilised for 24 hours before being transferred to the National Hospital.
The nurse also cited the non-availability of drugs through the National Health Insurance Scheme as another major problem affecting the hospital.
At Wuse District Hospital, the situation appeared almost similar to that of Nyanya as our reporter saw few nurses attending to a large number of patients. A nurse on duty told our reporter that nurses and doctors in the hospital are overwhelmed with work as they do the jobs of five persons and don’t get any additional remuneration.
She appealed to the FCT Administration to open up the windows for doctors and nurses to be recruited, noting that the acute shortage is having a serious effect in the hospital.
At the FCT Hospitals’ Management Board, the director-general was not on seat and our reporter was directed to the Head of Medical Services, who was also not on seat. A female staff member in his office wrote down the questions that the reporter wanted to ask the director and promised to get back to the reporter. She didn’t get back until press time.
A senior staff on the board, who pleaded anonymity, said the doctor who was called to attend to Mr Ude at Maitama District Hospital was still on training and could not have treated him, adding that he could only refer him to another hospital.
“Actually FCT hospitals are experiencing the ‘Japa” syndrome and our doctors are leaving in droves to seek greener pastures aboard,” she said. The officer later called another colleague to intimate her of the report and her colleague disclosed that the consulting urologist at Maitama Hospital had also resigned her job and travelled abroad.
Her colleague disclosed that in FCT hospitals, one doctor now does the job of about five persons and lamented that there are cases of some doctors slumping during work or dying in their sleep after work.
Our reporter was shown the poster of 55-year-old Dr. Chibundu Obiora, a chief consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Asokoro District Hospital Abuja, who went home after work and died.
Another doctor who died was Dr Musa Matashi Makama, 54, and the chief consultant family physician, Maitama District Hospital in Abuja.
The chief nursing officer at Gwarinpa District Hospital, Comrade Sylvester Ochiwu, 51, was said to have slumped and died at home, after work on January 17.
“It is high time the Federal Government opened the window for the recruitment of doctors and this call should be treated urgently,” she warned.
According to her, between September last year and January this year, about a thousand doctors have resigned their appointments from FCT public hospitals.
She also revealed that some newly recruited doctors only spend one year in service before resigning their appointment to either pick up jobs in other states or travel abroad.
The official further said that staff members of the board who are nurses or doctors go to assist in hospitals after their day’s work at the FCT Hospitals’ Management Board without any additional allowance.
Saturday Sun further learnt that the board had written to all district and general hospitals under the FCT Administration asking for a list of nurses so that they can transfer some nurses from hospitals with larger numbers to hospitals with fewer nurses.
During the recent on-the-spot assessments of 14 general/district hospitals in the FCT to ensure effective service delivery in line with world best practices, the FCT Mandate Secretary, Health Services and Environment Secretariat, Dr. Dolapo Fasawe, was confronted with this challenge. He noted that there was need for quick interventions in areas such as facility infrastructure, human capacity, medical equipment, staffing, and standardisation of operations.
The secretary who was accompanied by the acting director-general, Hospital Management Board, Dr Olugbenga Bello, and other top officials of the secretariat, disclosed that the FCT Administration’s major focus is to identify challenges, implement necessary reforms, and ensure that citizens receive the best possible care available at all times.
She interacted with healthcare professionals, inspected facilities in the hospitals, reviewed operational procedures and identified challenges for prompt interventions, assuring that the visit was at the instance of the FCT minister, Chief Nyesom Wike, in order to strengthen public healthcare in the FCT.
Fasawe commended the dedication of healthcare workers and assured them of support for their tireless efforts.
