- We Will Continue To Cooperate With Oyo Government – CMD, Otegbayo
Out patients seeking medical attention at the famous University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, the capital city of Oyo State have been speaking about how the governor of the state, Engineer Seyi Makinde can assist the number one tertiary health care delivery center in Africa to overcome most of the challenges facing it.
Parrot Xtra/PMParrot was told this while carrying out a special investigative report recently.
From the views of patients from different sections of the hospital, we were made to understand that Makinde’s major assignment is merely to ensure that he resuscitates Oyo State’s primary and secondary health care delivery facilities and all will be (almost) well with UCH.
One of our respondents, an octogenarian and retiree who worked with UCH for several years submitted “UCH is gradually sliding down the precipice. The reasons are not far-fetched – the host city and by extension, the state is killing it.”
When asked to elucidate further on his submission, the retired medical doctor who insisted that his name must not be mentioned spoke further “There are three stages in health care service delivery – the primary, secondary and tertiary. Permit me to explain further – primary is that Health Center at Eleta, Old Ife Road, Olomi in Ibadan established and run by the local governments or the local council development areas (LCDAs). There, you can be treated if you have minor ‘okada’ injuries, minor domestic accidents, fever and even normal child deliveries can be done there.
“At the Secondary health care delivery center like the Ogbomoso General Hospital or Saki General Hospital, accident victims and other serious cases can be sorted out.
“At a tertiary institution like the UCH, the primary assignment is to train medical officers for the first two earlier mentioned. And also to carry out ground breaking medical researches and other activities. Specialists are trained and nurtured.
“Unfortunately, the situation on ground is far from what is expected. Over the years, successive administrations have, by design or omission failed to sustain the primary and secondary health care delivery services in the state. And UCH has been at the receiving end. Patients who should go to the nearest Health Center for attention for their malaria fever and headache have made UCH their first point of call. Pregnant women will stop nowhere until they get to UCH for their normal deliveries. All these have put unnecessary pressure on the manpower here in UCH.
“Yes, we can say that UCH staffers need to watch their attitude to what they do, the major problem they have is that they are under constant pressure. A doctor that should not see more than twenty patients in a day now gives out ‘tallies’. He sees over 100. Go to the out patients’ section, children’s clinic and others to confirm. People troop in as early as 5 am to join the queues.
“So, to go back to my submission about what Governor Seyi Makinde should do, I will just advise him and pray for him so that he will live up to expectation. If he can focus on how to resuscitate and properly manage his state’s primary and secondary health care service delivery facilities, the problems of UCH will become half solved”.
The retired medical practitioner also spoke about the perception of the people of the state that ‘UCH kills people’.
His words “UCH does not kill. Most of these patients who get to UCH and die almost immediately got killed where they are coming from. Most of our people engage in self medication because of non-existence of primary health care delivery centers. Others patronize pseudo-health centres being run mainly by quacks. And after doing the damage, the quacks issue ambiguous referral notes and send them to us in UCH.
“I will tell you, most of the time, UCH doctors and nurses and others try to play the roles of magicians on these out-patients. Some of the times, successes are recorded. But once a patient has been badly managed, it takes the grace of God and mercy for such a person to survive. So, our people should not give UCH a bad name. They should always tell the truth about the medical histories of their patients.”
When contacted, the present Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Professor Jesse Abiodun Otegbayo confirmed that the past administration in UCH led by Professor Temitope Alonge and the past governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi agreed to work together.
Said Otegbayo, “there was some kind of agreement that UCH would send in some of our best brains in medical service delivery to some of the hospitals in the state. We are still committed to this. We will pay our officers their normal salaries but the state government too must pay them inconvenience allowances.
“For us in UCH, we are ready to cooperate with the government of Engineer Seyi Makinde to ensure that our people do not experience untimely deaths again. We will do our best to work hand in hand with the government here.”
A visit to UCH’s website, uch-ibadan.org.ng/ confirmed that the hospital has been reaching out to kind hearted Nigerians at home and abroad who can donate to help further the campaign to ensure sound health for Nigerians.
From PMParrot/Parrot Xtra’s study of the website, it was discovered that UCH is in dire need of repainting, provision of more crash carts for 24 wards, more consumables, more units of wheel chairs, units of transport ambulances with wheel chair facilities.
Other needs of the hospital include funds for the construction of a central immunization unit/Hospital crèche, blood donor vans, purchase of inverters for wards and others.
Nigerians willing to support UCH have been asked to call UCH’s helpline, +2347008244357.
The University College Hospital, Ibadan was opened to the public in November, 1957 and it was number one in Africa then.
Packaged by Alice Egbedele, Mayowa Owogbade and Blessing Donatus
