Hospitals are a place of healthcare covering emergencies, surgeries, psychiatrics, child birth and many other medical needs. People hope that by going to hospitals, their health needs are provided and wellness restored.
This report tells of the shared experiences of people in hospitals in Rivers State, Nigeria by correspondent Blessing Ituma. Mr. Chisom Okoro, a transporter narrates his experience in a hospital in Port Harcourt:
“First time I took my grandmum to the hospital, one just brought the wheelchair carelessly and left it. She was in coma and I told them to come and help me but they were just feeling less concerned. It was when I started shouting that one reluctantly came and helped us and the second one was when I took a friend to hospital, the boy was almost dying, when they started delaying, they moved the boy and that was how that boy survived.”
The expectations of people who visit hospitals is usually to be attended to in a dignified manner as a good hospital provides effective patient-centered care.
However, very often this is not the case as many people have different unpleasant experiences
A student, Juanita Roland tells a story of how she was almost ignored and how another patient next to her died due to nonchalance.
According to her, ” The nurses are also biased. Immediately they found out that my mum was a retired nurse, they tried to curry favour, they had to treat me after ignoring me for a long time and which was wrong. I also witnessed the death of the lady beside me. They were calling the Doctor. Doctor,doctor come my mother is dying but doctor was sleeping. And he made an individual, with two young children to die just like that. He came out and was like he is not the one incharge that the nurses should have taken care of her; that he was sleeping and it was time for his rest. And that shows nonchalance and it is not good. In private hospitals, it is better.”
Mr Princewill Nyeghe from Obio Akpo local Government Area shares an experience over the insistence of payment before treatment on a critical case.
Nyeghe said,” Once they discover that you are not financially buoyant, they will take a lot of time before they give you attention. The government needs to do something about that. The patient might not be strong enough to wait and before you know it, a life is gone.”
A visit to a government hospital in PortHarcourt captured an outburst of a woman whose mother was on admission.
” I managed to get somebody to donate blood but they cannot give her because the BP spiked. They have sent me to buy five different BP drugs, but they are not giving anyone. Anybody you call, especially that doctor that is wearing black, so nonchalant as if it is free.”
Nevertheless, it is not all about unpleasant stories. There is a considerable percentage of good healthcare providers .
For a retired community health officer, Mrs Gladys Ariba, continuous training and retraining will revive the compassion and love that characterized the services of doctors and nurses especially
” Who said that nurses are wicked, I have not seen them wicked because when you tell people to exercise patience, they want it hot hot, it’s not like that. But some of the nurses go late for work and quickly get angry with patients. So, let them improve on that.
Many of the respondents like Chisom Okoro and Juanita Roland are of the opinion that improved salary and welfare packages for health workers in all categories will change the narrative.
Chisom and Juanita note, “Some of all this doctors in government hospitals, they work in private hospitals. In their hospitals, they are very serious. Maybe beacause they are not paying them well, that is why they put in less in government hospitals.
So, we are calling on government to do something about this. If it is to increase their salary for them to make resolutions and reforms so that people will stop complaining, please do. And then they will be no more misconducts of nurses and deaths.”
It is the general believe that humane treatment from health workers will aid speedy recovery of patients.
This should be accompanied with increased funding and welfare packages from the government to enable job satisfaction, check brain drain and mortality rate in the country as according to the National Association of Resident Doctors report, about 19,000 doctors have departed the country over the past 20 years.
