I have been to hospitals on several occasions and from all I came out with a mixed bag of experiences. While I spent a few days sequestered in bed a few times, I went under the knife twice. However, even when I had to simply walk in, do the needful and walked out, I always wonder about how lucky I am when others have not been so lucky. But from the visits that left sour memories in my mind, none marched the events that unfolded at the Stella Obasanjo Hospital, Benin City, on Friday, January 8, 2016. It is one day I’d rather forget but for the sake of records.
A friend called to inform me the previous day that he needed to see me over an important issue he’d rather not discuss on phone. I agreed that we meet in my office mainly because I have never known him to be a frivolous individual. However, when he called me that morning to announce that he was already in my office, I was still still trying to have my breakfast at home, a reason for which I agreed, upon his request, that he came over to the house. He did and we sorted the issue out in no time.
Somehow, other issues cropped up, so I asked him to oblige me with his presence while I sorted them out. One thing led to another and we ended up the Delta State University Teaching Hospital, Oghara for an impromptu engagement. But for that fateful meeting, events that unfolded on our return to Benin City would have ended in an unmitigated disaster.
We returned to my residence towards 3pm and I asked him to drop me by the gate and wait as I went in to pick my car. But no sooner had I entered my compound than my daughter rushed out to inform me that my neighbour’s 9 year old little girl was convulsing. I rushed in to assess the situation but was dazed by the unfolding drama. There was no time to waste.
I jumped in my car and directed the parents to hop in with the kid. As fast as I could, I took them to the nearest medical facility which turned out to be Stella Obasanjo Hospital, off Sapele Road. I was there in about 5 minutes despite the chaotic traffic along the route. Then the real drama began to unfold.
The first sign that we were in for a shocker came through when the doctor we met on duty almost refused to attend to the still convulsing child. She was not moved by her obviously increasing spasm but insisted on closing for the day. Somehow, our supplications touched a soft spot in her even as she insisted that we must first obtain the out patient card. No problem.
While we were at that, she wondered a little too that she was so unlucky to be the one to handle a “convulsion this girl may not survive”. The surprised nurse by her side glanced incredulously at me.
I wanted to respond but decided against it because it would further alarm the baby’s already traumatized mother still fretting frantically beside me. Instead, I prevailed on the doctor to do something, at least, to stabilize the little girl. She responded by administering some medication via the anal passage and left us shortly after.
About 10 minutes or so later, her replacement, another woman, came in and took over the case. Sadly, her first response was to make it clear that we must take the still convulsing, long suffering, little girl to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH, as according to her, “there is no space for admission here”.
Sensing that the little girl might die if we fail to act fast, my friend suddenly remembered and called the doctor we had a meeting with at Oghara who, coincidentally, is a Pediatrician. She asked him to put the mother of the girl on the phone.
After debriefing her, she asked that the phone be handed over to the doctor in charge. Reluctantly, she picked the call and I heard her telling the consultant that the patient had already received 10 ml of a certain stabilizing medication. However, the consultant insisted that she increased the dosage by another 10 ml given that the patient will not sufficiently absorb the required stabilizing quantity from the initial 10 ml. She did but insisted that we must take the little girl away.
While we were at it, a woman brought a kid stooling and vomiting but was simply dismissed by the doctor. She asked her to take the kid to UBTH without bothering to administer any stabilizing medication first. Helplessly, the woman went away wailing. The doctor also left shortly afterwards.
Albeit so, I refused to move because I was sure the poor girl would likely not make it through the long and largely unpredictable journey from Sapele Road to Ugbowo. Without other viable options, I placed a call through to Dr Eboreme, Permanent Secretary, Hospital Management Board. He asked me to hand the phone over to the doctor but because she was nowhere to be found, I gave it to the nurse, the only medical personnel on ground. Brazenly, she lied in her attempt to give the impression that the doctor had done the needful. She did not add that whatever was done was with the prompting of the consultant from far away Oghara. However, his prompt intervention saved the situation from getting out of hand because a few minutes after the call and apparently having been briefed by the nurse, the doctor reappeared and began to make prescriptions.
But it was a duty carried out in bad faith.
First, she asked that we procured Canula, a transfusion materials. Rather than the blue colored material available in the hospital pharmacy, she insisted that we bought the yellow colored alternative even though both perform the same function. We had to get the particular one from a pharmaceutical store outside the hospital. And time was ticking so unkindly against the still convulsing poor child.
Surprisingly, as quickly as we produced the items, she wrote another prescription after which she gave us the sample for the test outside the hospital. I went with the child’s father to conduct the test but stayed a little behind to collect the balance of the payment while he rushed back with the result. However, as soon as I came out, I saw them waving frantically at me. The father carried his daughter while the mother followed close-by, openly distraught. I thought the worst had happened. It turned out that the doctor got her message through that we had to take the girl away.
I got into the car and drove off to Ugbowo with my friend ahead, using his car to clear the road for me. For once in my entire driving life, I drove without so much attention to the road or its other users. I was convinced that if I did, I may end up too slow and possibly lose the kid.
I got to UBTH slightly after 6:30 pm without any incident and felt on top of the world. I was in cloud nine as I watched from afar, two doctors, two interns and a nurse swing into action without delay. It was one of the most soothing sight I can remember, a far cry from the she-could-die-for-all-I-care attitude of the doctors on duty at the Stella Obasanjo Hospital.
A day after the drama above, I was informed, not verified though, that a child died in UBTH shortly after being referred from same hospital that sent us there. As I speak, I am still haunted by the fate of the wailing woman who was dismissed with her clearly dehydrating kid. But as someone said after listening to my account, Stella Obasanjo Hospital is clearly carving a niche for itself as an institution more at home with its mortuary facilities. At least, that is the impression created by the attitude of a lot of its medical staff.
This is not the first or second time I have had experiences similar to the one above. On one occasion, I had to call both Dr Ugbudaga, permanent secretary, ministry of health and the health commissioner. On that fateful day, my wife returned from her place of work one day vomiting. The situation degenerated and took a turn for the worse, prompting me to head to the hospital being the nearest. But for no clear reason, the doctor we met on duty, incidentally a woman, would not be bothered about quickly attending to even the other patients we met. I could not take it any more when after about 45 minutes, she was still attended to. But I was raising my objection when a woman with a child of less than two weeks remarked that she had been sitting down for over an hour without anyone attending to her even though they were aware that her child had jaundice. The option left was to inform relevant authorities. Why my heat was on, they asked the woman to take the poor child to another hospital for the same reason they gave to the woman with her stoolling and vomiting child. But for my report, the medical director, already on her way home, was ordered back to the hospital. Though the doctor and nurses almost succeeded in convincing her that I was not telling the truth about what transpired, she saw through their make belief story when I mentioned the case of the child with jaundice. Against the initial claim that there was no space, she ordered that the kid must be admitted and they found a space that was not there earlier.
More than anything, this account is meant to alert relevant authorities of the ongoing disservice at the Stella Obasanjo Hospital. The truth is that the state has invested so much on the health sector and cannot to watch as a few of its staff wreck havoc on it. The earlier it checked their excesses, the better it will turn out for everyone. After all, a stitch in time saves nine.
