By Chim Ogwutum
Staff Sleep On Duty Every Day; Student Doctors Experiment With Patients, Pregnant Women Without Supervision; No Dialysis Unit, Essential Drugs Out Of Stock, Patients Referred To Private Pharmacies;· CMD Evades Press, Holds Daily Endless Meetings
On Monday, 11 July 2022, a viral video emanated from the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH), Port Harcourt (formerly Braithwaite Memorial Hospital) in which a man was seen furiously bemoaning the attitudes of doctors and nurses who rather than attend to patients in need of urgent attention, were always sleeping on duty. The man in the video narrated how the negligence of the medical personnel led to the death of a baby being delivered through a caesarean section and how it nearly led to a violent protest in the hospital by patients and their relatives.
The man called on the Governor of Rivers State, Chief Nyesom Wike, to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the role of medical personnel in the high incidence of deaths in the hospital.
“I’m speaking from Braithwaite Memorial Hospital (RSUTH) in Port Harcourt right now. We have very serious negligence from doctors and nurses. This is to tell the governor that all he has put in here is in futility. As I speak to you, as early as 12 am – 7 am, the doctors are very busy sleeping; nurses were all busy sleeping. We were waking them up to attend to us. We went to where we would collect sample parts, we banged on the door for over 30 minutes; nobody came out. They were sleeping in different rooms. The sac of the woman we brought here had already broken, and we woke and pleaded with them to attend to us. They refused and they all went back to sleep from 12am till the early hours of today. They only came at 7 am to tell us after a caesarean operation that the baby is no more, that the baby couldn’t make it,” the man lamented.
Speaking further, he said, “Please I want the Governor to send the necessary emissaries to BMH and do a proper finding of what is happening in the BMH, whether BMH is used for the consumption of innocent babies and souls or it is used to bring happiness and joy to families that have come here to look for their succour.
“We are very bitter because by the next time we will take the next action, we might be misinterpreted or misconstrued. Look at, everybody here is very bitter, we could set this place ablaze. But we are not doing it because we are law-abiding citizens,” the man cried.
Armed with this touching video, and for more than two weeks, National Point began a follow-up to verify the man’s claims.
The first assignment was to locate the hospital’s Dialysis. It seemed like a fruitless effort until one of the doctors at the Radiography Unit directed National Point to a newly completed one-storey building behind Zenith Bank. But on getting there, nobody was found, and no activity was going on. Two men who this Reporter met on the staircase of the building said though it was the
Dialysis building operation had not started there yet.
They directed our correspondent to another unit where a male staff simply said: “Dialysis unit? We don’t have such for now.”
EMERGENCY WARD:
At the Emergency ward, a woman of about 79, who gave her name as Madam Esther Ukaegbu, said she was rushed to the hospital a week ago over difficulties in urinating and stooling. She complained about high cost of drugs in the hospital and even said most of the drugs prescribed in the hospital were being bought outside the hospital.
“If you don’t have enough money, nobody will attend to you. They will abandon you there to die,” she said and appealed to the government to reduce the cost of drugs. He however expressed the hope that she would be strong and fit by the time she spent another week.
A young man who was taken to the hospital after he broke his right limb in an accident, told National Point: “You can see I can walk gradually now. Before I was brought to this place by my people, I could not walk.” The man who gave his name as Goodluck Barikpana said the problem in the hospital was that their drugs were too expensive, even as most of the prescribed drugs were not in the hospital, and had to be bought from prescribed pharmacies outside.
Iyala Bright had serious difficulty breathing and was rushed to the Emergency Unit on Saturday, 9th July. Bright who said he was already getting better and hoped to be discharged any time soon, said he got fair treatment from the doctors and nurses. “They treated me well, and for me, the cost of the drugs used on me were moderate.”
Some other patients interviewed said they were unable to get medical attention because they did not have enough money to buy prescribed drugs. “I have been here for the past three days without given full medical attention, except on the very first day I was brought in. They just abandoned me because I didn’t have money to buy their expensive drugs at their private pharmacies,” one of them said.
Another patient whose guardian warned them not to disclose his name told National Point that the doctors were good but the problem was the high cost of prescribed drugs, which could compound the condition of patients.“Between government hospitals and private ones, I don’t know the one that is cheaper and within the reach of poor people,” he noted.
A very worrisome situation in the hospital is that it lacks essential drugs to deal with serious health cases as about 75% of drugs prescribed by doctors are bought outside the hospital at very high costs in specific private pharmacies in which the doctors and senior nurses have interest. Some of these private pharmacies, investigations revealed, are owned by very senior doctors in RSUTH. Patients are made to produce receipts from these private pharmacies before they even dispensed drugs in the hospital’s pharmacy.
At the entrance of the Post-Natal wards, a young man and his mother-in-law were seen and heard lamenting the situation. The man identified as Sammy, whose wife was said to have delivered of her baby through caesarean section, complained that all the money he was asked to pay had been paid, including drugs, and wondered why he should be tasked an extra N2,000 before seeing his wife and baby.
“This hospital is after money, they don’t have feelings for human beings. If you calculate all the money we have so far spent here, there is no difference with the private hospitals,” the man’s mother-in-law said, adding, “Thank God that my daughter and my grandchild are alive and saved, no crying.”
On Thursday, 21st of July, 2022, there was a general outcry and weeping by the husband, co-tenants, workers, relatives and friends over the death of a female staff in the cleaning department of the Teaching Hospital. The late woman, whose name was not disclosed to National Point, was married to a young police officer. The woman was said to have fallen sick, and apparently, due to a lack of money to buy drugs in and out of the hospital, she approached a female friend of hers in the neighbourhood who prepared and gave her a native concoction to drink. It was learnt that moments after taking the concoction, her condition worsened and she was immediately rushed to the RSUTH by neighbours, where she was admitted. It was also gathered that moment after she was transferred to another ward, she died over what was perceived as negligence arising from too much protocol and delay in attending to her.
Questions:
“Why did the doctors and nurses delay attending to the woman? Could it be that the teaching hospital had no drug(s) effective enough to neutralize the effect of the local concoction taken by the late woman?” A relative of the late woman asked bitterly, as she wailed.
“This hospital is becoming something else and something must be done by the State Government to correct the situation,” a worried visitor to the hospital said, adding, “it’s like this hospital is no longer safe for patients.”
A patient who simply identified herself as Madam Comfort, at the Department of Internal Medicine (DIM), also known as MOPD, complained about the high number of patients coming to the hospital. He lamented that the process of admission and attention to patients was painfully slow and frustrating. She also expressed reservations on the vexed issues of the high cost of drugs, and doctors and nurses referring patients to private pharmacies to buy drugs, which were equally expensive.
“Since this is a government hospital, I appeal to the state government to see the need to subsidize the cost of drugs,” she said,
Downcast and frustrated by the unfriendly attitude of the staff of RSUTH, an elderly lady lamented: “I’m tired of this hospital, they are just after money. Every time I come, they’ll refer me from one department to the other without result.”
An expectant mother, who gave her name as Mrs Joy, revealed how patients are traumatized by the negative attitudes of doctors and nurses. It’s by God’s grace that patients survive in this hospital,” she said, noting that “doctors and nurses don’t care about people’s lives in the hospital. Most of the young Doctors sent to treat us are “Baby Student Doctors” who have no medical experience, but use us for experiments without supervision by senior doctors”, she lamented.
Nurses at the Post-Natal and Ante-Natal wards declined to speak to National Point on the issues raised by patients, saying, “We are not competent to speak on such issues.”
But, one of the nurses told the newspaper that she could not comment on whether doctors and nurses were actually sleeping on duty as reported in the video, affirming that it was a dent in the image of the hospital. “The video is too bad and a complete dent on the image of this Rivers State-owned University Teaching Hospital,” she said, maintaining that the management should do something to clear the bad image.
She further said: “We have seen the viral video. The management is aware of the whole thing and has taken a holistic view of the video; they are really investigating the situation. The man in the video that went viral is not even the husband of the woman, and he is not in any way related to her. As of yesterday (Monday, 18th July 2022), the woman came to the hospital, looking hale and healthy.”
Asked about the child she lost as a result of doctors and nurses’ negligence, the Nurse took a deep look at National Point and stressed: “Oga, please I don’t have the power to dabble into such. So, I will direct you to the management where those that matter and have the capacity to speak will give you detailed information on that.”
With that, the Reporter sought to see the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Dr. Friday .E. Aaron. Several attempts to see him were fruitless, not even after filling the visitor’s note to see him.
During some of the many visits to his office, the CMD engaged himself in a series of endless meetings that lasted for several hours. It appeared that the CMD was shielding the doctors and nurses, and deliberately avoid addressing the press on the matter. It was also discovered that it was not the first time RSUTH medical personnel would abandon their patients and go to sleep while on duty. It has become a sort of norm, which according to our findings was not an issue of concern to the management.
A senior official, to who this journalist was referred, asked his female Secretary to tell National Point: “I have no power to speak on the issue,” and referred enquiries back to the CMD, who is said to be the only authorized person to speak on that.
On many occasions, it has been: “The CMD is in a meeting. Please don’t worry, you will definitely see him, first thing tomorrow before entering the meeting,” one of the aides to the CMD assured. But all these assurances were mere antics and fruitless.
Source: National Point
