Desmond Mgboh, Kano
Anybody, who has heard the story of the index case of Coronavirus in Kano State, would certainly appreciate the precarious situation confronting medical doctors in their line of duty in the state.
The index case, a 70-year-old retired ambassador, had sought medical attention at Prime Hospital, situated along Lamido Road in the state capital, a few days after he sneaked into the state after visiting Abuja, Lagos and Kaduna. He was able to access the doctors on duty at the hospital, but was largely economical with the information he made available to them.
At the end of his consultation, he was admitted at the facility, where he spent a night, only for the officials of the state task force on COVID-19 to storm the hospital the next day to arrest and forceful take him to an isolation centre.
On the part of the doctors, two of them precisely, it was the dawn of a long night. Alongside some other staff of the hospital, they were immediately isolated in the sealed facility while their samples were taken for laboratory test. They waited anxiously, sometimes in anger until their results returned negative.
That was the first dreadful baptism and plight of medical doctors in the state on Coronavirus pandemic.
Sources within the medical profession told Sunday Sun that there is also a general feeling that not all the people dying could be said to be entirely from complications of the virus because many were not tested before they passed away.
“All these risky exposures in hospitals, public and private, have in a way affected the altitude of many medical doctors in the state,” Anthony Akpan, a public affairs commentator, said, adding that it was absolutely normal for human beings, no matter their courage, to fear in the face of a disease that is both invisible and fatal.
It was gathered that the berthing of the index case, coupled with the explosion of confirmed cases in the state, standing at 219 cases as at Friday, and the non-availability of protective apparels and equipment, has further unsettled medical doctors and workers in the state.
“Like the rest of the public, a majority of them are deeply concerned for their own personal safety. They are worried that by virtue of their profession, they are the first point of medical reach out for all the sick persons in the state, many of whom they may not be able to diagnose their illness at first glance,” Anthony stated.
Despite their boldness, many medical personnel, including doctors in the state, have since developed cold feet, walking with increasing care and caution. This has led to slight changes, individual and institutional, between the sick and the medical institutions.
Consequently, one of the few changes that have been introduced in many hospitals, especially private facilities in the metropolis of the state is the scaling down of services to specific areas. Some, especially children hospitals, have limited their services largely to the core area.
Some medical doctors in the state have been adopting tele-medication to treat the sick. In this process, they discuss with the patients by phone, give you the necessary medical advice by the same means and send you a list of drugs through your WhatsApp to purchase from the pharmacy or patent medical outlets.
There has also been a drop in cases of admission into these private medical facilities, according to investigation by Sunday Sun as the sick are oftentimes advised to come from home.
The Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano, a few days ago announced the closure of about 14 specialty clinics in the hospital services while also quietly excusing their older and aged medical doctors from coming to work for now.
Sunday Sun gathered that the decision to excuse the aged staffers was informed by the fear that the Coronavirus disease attacks the elderly more, particularly those who are above the age of 65.
Dr Frank Akabudu, chief executive officer of New Greenland Specilaists Hospital, Kano, confirmed to Sunday Sun that as medical doctors, “we are just being more vigilant these days and making sure that we are working safe.”
He acknowledged that they were yet to get sufficient supplies of Personal Protection Equipment to assist them in doing their work, adding that these PPE are either not available or where they are available, they are very expensive.
“Mind you, this is a highly infectious disease and care givers are at higher risk of contracting the disease than any other groups of the people in the society,” he said.
He said that medical facilities are reorganizing their mode of operation, taking into consideration the safety of their staff, as well as the overall safety of the society.
He noted that he has initiated a few measures in the face of the situation, insisting that “it is compulsory for my patients to wear facemasks when visiting the clinic.”
In addition, he noted that he has reviewed the sitting position in the waiting room to give room for more space to the visitors as they wait even as he added that he has undertaken a general sanitization of the entire hospital, even at a huge cost.
The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in a statement on Wednesday and signed by its chairman, Dr Sanusi Bala, acknowledged that there have been slight changes in the hospital services in the state in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak.
“Medical services have been streamlined in hospital services in the wake of this Coronavirus outbreak. It is not business as usual. Now patients can’t come directly to see doctors, that is why some protocols had been put in place to avoid contracting and spreading Coronavirus among the public,” he said.
He explained that due the outbreak, hospital authorities had to come up with some measures to protect the frontline doctors against being infected, as well as to check the spread of the disease among the people.
On the reports on social media that doctors and other medical personnel in Kano are fleeing the state, a medical doctor, Eugene Beleonu, told Sunday Sun that there was no medical doctor that had left the state to any other state or place in the recent time.
“Flee the state for where? The roads are blocked and the airports are shut. So, how did they flee?” he queried.
According to him, “what I know is that there ware complaints that there were no sufficient Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for medical workers, including doctors. I think that these complaints were both coming from the public and private hospitals in the state”.
Also, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in the state refuted the claim that medical doctors are abandoning their duties in the state as alleged by one public affairs commentator on a television channel.
The Chairman, Nigerian Medical Association, Kano State branch, Dr Sunusi Bala described the claim as a fabricated lie designed to cause confusion in the state.
Meting on Tuesday with private health facility owners over their operations, Kano State governor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje said: “We have seen that while the government is doing one thing in our public hospitals, the private hospitals are doing something else. If the private health facilities are not well coordinated, then there would be a lot of problems.
“We had some useful discussions with them, we decided that all private public health facilities would be connected to our emergency health centres in order to get immediate data pertaining to Coronavirus.”