By Prince Charles okongwu
I have recently come to notice that most Nigerian government hospitals are modelled in their functions only as teaching hospitals. Its means that we don’t actually have any government hospitals in Nigeria that give direct treatments to her patients.
All we have here are all approved government teaching hospitals, not treatment hospitals. A teaching hospital is where some group of university students are brought for training or teaching with general patients of the hospital at the will of the hospital management.
It means that the hospitals are at will to use your health information’s or clinical analysis samples data for their students study without questioning. You can be treated in the cause of the study if you’re lucky or you have a well-contacted person in government or the hospitals.
It’s also very astonishing you pay all your bills accrued to obtained all those clinical samples which the hospital university students use. So here in Nigerian patients are merely specimen’s or clinical analysis samples used in training students doctors or hospitals workers.
A treatment hospital is an ideal hospital for humanity where your health information and specimen’s or clinical analysis are specifically kept in secrecy only for your personal use and treatment.
In most of our teaching hospitals today we have issues of missing patients cards or folder, which are moved to be used in students study teaching, it’s also clearly noticeable that most of our Autopsy done in our teaching hospitals are cannibal due to unprofessional touch over students study training.
I will advise the government to put some rights of protection on the use of patients health data history and information to avoid loss of health status information over abuses or carelessness of our health care worker to reduce the death rate.
Our health sector in Nigeria is having a health crisis and something very serious should be done. Many Nigerians are dying in thousands daily due to lack of medical treatment.
I observed in many state’s of Nigeria we don’t have two highly equipped general hospitals in each senatorial zone Enugu for an example. Its is only park plane teaching hospital in Enugu. It’s worrisome for Enugu as the population has overgrown this hospital. I visited the MOD department in Parklane hospital Enugu, and It’s horrific to see very sick people and the building was overcrowded with little ventilation.
Poor helpless sick people everywhere unattended with little or no doctors. It’s too unfair by the state government or federal to stock his citizens in such health delimited situation. I notice some sick patients coming into the hospital but was not in appointment as a MOD, not GOPD patients. special patients got turned out and emergency could not also receive them due to overload of sick people.
Rejecting sick people from treatment over space is bad. I will also advocate that all teaching hospitals in Nigeria should start to offer free treatments and free drugs supplies to all her patients to cushion her uses of public health data history and information for training students in university who as well pays too to the hospital for the training, hence the citizens are completely extorted.
Meanwhile, Building another hospital is the only alternative to stop the current health crisis running down the nation. Care for our people now we are still alive. Write your name in Gold now if you are in a position in government.
Prince Charles Okongwu is a freelancing Opinion Writer for 9News Nigeria
VDS Kiralama