- That is the unflattering situation at UBTH, a supposed centre of medical excellence
Even if the headline suggests some probable hyperbole, the accompanying picture of the facility is sobering: unhinged tiles, a ramshackle table, a filthy floor and a trinity of dingy plastic buckets: that is the inside of one of the facilities at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Benin, Edo State.
“We operate patients in reptile-infested theatres”, went the damning headline, in
Punch, quoting Dr. Omoregbe Owen, president of the UBTH Association of Resident Doctors (ARD).
“The theatres are in the worst conditions, as surgeries are carried out by doctors who are sweating on patients,” he said. “Insects and reptiles come in freely into the theatres and wards because of the dilapidated state of facilities.”
Now, this is more than damning. For starters, it is trite that wards and especially surgical theatres must be sterilised, so that an untidy hospital environment does not breed further infections for the patient. For UBTH, if this claim is true and things are really as bad as its ARD had painted it, it would appear quality assurance has broken down. That is indeed tragic, for it could herald a hospital, traditionally a place of treatment and care, turning into a disease-breeding centre.
Besides, Dr. Nosakhare Bazuaye, consultant haematologist and coordinator of UBTH stem cell transplant centre, triumphantly announced on November 9 the hospital had carried out its second successful stem cell transplant. Are these avant-garde surgeries also done in its dingy and filthy theatres, complete with invading reptiles and sweaty medics?
These allegations — if indeed they are allegations and not sickly realities — the UBTH management must address and give convincing answers to.
Convincing answers here mean speedily remedying the scandalous situation, but not some sophistry. Even a primary medical centre (the lowest in the hierarchy of medical facilities) should not be in such a shambles, not to talk of a supposed tertiary facility — and a medical centre of excellence to boot!
That is why the UBTH Public Relations Officer, Mrs Kehinde Ibitoye’s reaction to the story does not cut it at all. Is it the UBTH ARD claim she is not aware of? Or the mockery of best medical practices that the teaching hospital has sadly become? Prof. Michael Obadin, the hospital chief medical director, should therefore do the needful and start acting fast to correct the anomaly.
This is because the hospital’s problems would appear multi-faceted. Aside from run-down hardware as x-ray units, CT scan and radiotherapy machines, which the ARD claims are always breaking down despite alleged Federal Government’s investment in these equipment, it also appears to suffer an acute shortage in clinical staff.
“The hospital that was manned by over 150 house officers is currently covered by 60 house officers [less than half, which should have been 75], while a ward of over 50 patients is being run by three nurses,” Dr. Owen insisted. “It is shocking to reveal that the last time resident doctors were employed in UBTH was in 2011,” he added, “and in the intervening four-year period, over 400 resident doctors have exited without any replacement.
The UBTH authorities should address these issues and bring relief to the hospital’s medical publics. Making UBTH a theatre of the absurd, from its supposed dizzying height of centre of medical excellence, is absolutely unacceptable.
