INSIDE LAGOS UNIVERSITY TEACHING HOSPITAL

Are you going to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos State as patient? Please buy your Standing fan, take your mat, carry your water and if possible go along with your generator set for these facilities are not there EMEKA IBEMERE, reports

For Chinedu Bosah, whose mother, the late Mrs. Rose Bosah, 1947-2013, died at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos State, the hospital is a ghost of its former self.

Chinedu, ardent believer in Abacha’s infamous statement: ‘Nigerian Hospitals are mere consulting clinics,’ said years after that coup speech; LUTH is still on that condition. But why is Chinedu referring the famous LUTH, in disdain metaphor- LUTH contributed to the death of her mother due to the lackluster medical attention going on at the LUTH. The late Mrs. Rose Bosah was buried on Saturday March 30, 2013 at her family’s compound at her home town at Okpanam in Delta state.

“My mother died at the hospital at about 4am of infective CVD, so the hospital staff said. This unfortunate incident precisely took place at Ward A4 of female medical at 4am on Sunday 23 2012. The family was astonished at the death of our mother because two of the consultants had said that my mother could be discharged as soon as the test results are out since her condition had improved and we were hopeful that on Monday Dec. 24, she would go home”.

Chinedu Bosah stated in her petition which is available to Newswatch Daily.

Daily Newswatch gathered that Chinedu’s mother had been receiving treatment at LUTH for several months but was not admitted until Tuesday December 18, 2012, when she became unconscious and was rushed to LUTH.

For three years late Bosah was receiving treatment for ulcer and managing hypertension. She was allegedly admitted into the Accident and Emergency Department (A&E), where her condition was stabilized. She regained consciousness the next day but the neglect of patients at the LUTH was very unbearable.

According to Chinedu, the doctors recommended several laboratory tests which were to be conducted and amongst the tests were CT scan, Chest X-ray PA, and ECG etc.  He said he was astonished to discover that LUTH could not conduct a CT scan. He was told that the machine was not working. He was directed to a Foremost Radiology Consultants Ltd situated at No 50 Ogunlana Drive, Surulere where he actually did the CT scan at a cost of N35, 000 and Chest X-ray PA for N2, 200 on Thursday December 20, 2012.

Chinedu said he left that laboratory that day with one question continued to disagree with what he experienced on that day.

“One question that readily comes to mind is how come hospital as big as LUTH fails to have a functional Laboratory/Radio diagnosis Department while one man, Mr. Adeyemoye A.A.O whom I was told is a consultant to LUTH could have a more functional Radio diagnosis that can run CT scan”? However, Chinedu’s mother eventually did endoscopic test last year at a private establishment located at Ojuelegba when LUTH could not carry out such test.

“Is it not a case of deliberately undermining the public hospital vis-à-vis sabotage which profit private establishments who are in one way or the other linked to LUTH top management; or is it a failure of top public officials while LUTH’s top management remains lackadaisical”? Chinedu queried. Chinedu disclosed to our correspondent that the private establishments pay commission to any doctor that refers patient to their laboratories. 

Our source also stated that when her mother was transferred to ward A4 on the recommendation of the medical officials, on Thursday Dec. 20 at about 7 pm., it was difficult moving her mother to Ogunlana Drive and back to Ward A4 since she could not walk because she was very weak.

“Neither porter nor wheel chair was readily available; hence we were forced to carry our mother to the waiting cab outside. When we came back from Ogulana Drive and got to the ground floor of Ward A4, the elevator attendant told us that we cannot use the elevator because the light cannot power the elevator and again, I had to carry my mum on my arms to the 3^rd floor, an act that was uncomfortable for her because she was wearing urinary catheter”, Chinedu added.

“First, we got to Ward A3, we where redirected to Ward A4. When we got to Ward A4, there was no bed sheet, pillow sheet and mosquito net. We bought mosquito net while Ward A3 nurses obliged us with a bed sheet”.

According to Chinedu, lack of facilities and adequate personnel were also evident at Ward A4. Two nurses serve four bays in Ward A4 with over 20 patients between night time and day break. It would be recalled that the World Health Organization (WHO)’s standard is one nurse to four patients.

Aside lack of adequate personnel at LUTH, scarcity of water for patients and relatives to take their bath is also a problem. Patients resort in buying bags of sachet water popularly known as pure water to serve several purposes. Candle marketers at the shops littered roundabout LUTH are making brisk business.

“In actual fact, we bought bags of pure water to enable my mum take her bath on the morning of Friday December 21, 2012”. The toilet at Ward A4 is also dirty and lack basic facilities. In some cases, the wards are so stuffy, particularly when there is no electricity; hence some patients or their relatives resort to buying their own standing fans. A visitor at the loo is confronted with stagnant dirty water on the floor and the toilet very unkempt. The condition of lavatory at the A&E department could best be described as filthy.

A situation where two nurses are allowed to take care of 20 patients will overwhelm them and this explains why small buckets are placed under the bed of every patient so that the patients whether capable or incapable could help themselves when passing out excrement without resorting to assistance from the nurses.

“My mother fell from the small bucket while passing out feces; apparently she was weak, then fell and died. At no cost to LUTH, the family requested that one of her sons who is currently a student nurse at LUTH should stay by the side of my late mum all through the night like it was at the A&E ward, the nurses on duty refused. We were always keeping an eye on her all round the clock because of her health condition in order to assist her with all her needs including taking her to the toilet, bathroom, watching her health and reporting her health conditions to the nurses and doctors. These, the nurses and doctors could not do and yet they insisted that the hospital management have a policy that prohibits a relative staying at the wards at certain period of the day, particularly all through the night. Why would LUTH management introduce a policy that is inimical to the patients, particularly the ones that are so weak and needs all round-the-clock care that the hospital cannot give”?

According to Chinedu, when the results of CT scan and Chest X-ray PA the mother did on Thursday Dec. 20, 2012 came out on Friday Dec. 21, 2012,  for proper analysis, interpretation and prescription. It was gathered that the junior doctor (House Officer) on duty had no capacity to prescribe drugs based on the result, hence she did not prescribe.

He said one option confronting them then was for the consultant to come and interpret the results and prescribe drugs. But the consultant was nowhere to be found, he said.

 “The consultant (senior doctor) attending to my late mother will only be available on Monday Dec. 24, 2012 so we were told. So, it was to take about 72 for a competent doctor to carry out the required job! From my own observation it appears the senior doctors come to see patients in the morning from Monday to Friday. After the routine morning visit that would last for about 1 hour, the next visit will be the next day. Besides, the routine morning visit is used to attend to the patients and also serve as avenue to groom the upcoming doctors. Besides, most of these senior doctors do this routine morning duty and subsequently retire to their own private hospitals”. He queried.

“My question is that why would a hospital as big as LUTH lack adequate capable hands after morning routines and could not be seen on weekends? Had the senior doctors prescribed drugs immediately the results were out, there would have been higher chances of my mother surviving. It appears the hospital management and most key workers do not care if patients left under their care die; hence there is lukewarm attitude towards patients. It explains why the matron of Ward 4 on the day my mother died boosted that her husband died in the same LUTH”.

Chinedu disclosed that in Ward 4 alone, all the three female patients including his late mother transferred from emergency ward between Dec 20 and 21 2012 died.  Our source revealed that his late mother was transferred to Ward 4 on December 20, 2012 and she died on December 23 2012; Late Mrs. Florence who was suffering from diabetes and transferred to Ward 4 on December 21, 2012 also died on December 28, 2012; while Late Mrs. Beauty Uba, who was suffering from hypotension and transferred to Ward 4 on December 21, 2012, equally died on January 4, 2013. Hence, LUTH was unable to salvage the lives of all the three patients.

“I can’t imagine how many patients die every day! I submit that there is high degree of negligence and inefficiency at LUTH, which are responsible for many avoidable deaths”, Chinedu stated.

“I analyzed my observations and experience of LUTH bothering on lack of facilities and adequate man power in a letter dated January 31, 2013 and submitted it to the Prof. Akin Osibogun, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), on the same day as dated. He called me on phone the next day Friday, February, 2013 and promised to investigate the circumstances of my mother’s death. Like most government appointees who are never responsible to the people they serve, he never got back to me. All subsequent calls put through to Prof Osibogun were rebuffed and only on two occasions, his so called Personal Assistant answered and stated that his boss was very busy. In fact, in the same conversation I had with the CMD, he was defending the government and blaming private sector for not investing in teaching hospitals to be able to meet the growing demand. Though, being appointed by the federal government, I don’t expect less in the same way I don’t expect anything different from politicians benefiting the present rot. The question that readily comes to mind is that, is it private sector that will teach Prof. Osibogun how to keep toilet clean or make water and light available at all times just to mention a few”?  Investigation revealed that   it was extremely difficult for LUTH to care for patients with serious ailments; let alone heal them considering its state of facilities and personnel at disposal.

“This is why the rich and politicians travel abroad to get treatment at the best hospitals in the world at the expense of the public while public hospitals in Nigeria are abandoned to rot away. It is estimated that privileged Nigerians spend over $500 million (N80 billion) every year to treat one ailment or the other in foreign hospitals”, he reasoned. 

Chinedu said the LUTH management and relevant government officials in the health ministry should put in place basic facilities and adequate number of well trained personnel to be able to render qualitative health care service delivery to all those in need of it.

“This in my view will abolish avoidable deaths at LUTH and by extension should be replicated in all other public hospitals. One major problem aside inadequate funding and the reason why virtually all public corporations collapse is the undemocratic manner they are run”, he said.

“For instance, the management of LUTH is never accountable to workers and the entire public, not even workers are aware of how resources, either generated internally or allocated to it by the government are utilized, let alone managed, a situation that gives room to arbitrariness, mismanagement and embezzlement. I am also demanding democratic control of LUTH and other public hospitals such that workers/experts of different departments and representatives of the communities are elected into a committee to transparently manage them to forestall pilfering, looting, mismanagement and sabotage. This is the only way resources (man and material) will be best utilized in the overall public interest”.