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A thought for poor,
sick Nigerians
By Idiat-Abdul Ghaniu, Jos
Monday, May 12, 2008
Once, I was opportuned to escort a member of the League of
Friends of JUTH to one of her official functions at the teaching
hospital. During my stay in one of the offices, where families
of patients who could not pay their bills are helped, so to
say, it beat my imagination that some Nigerians billionaires
could not even give it a thought and grasp the opportunity
to give a hand of care to dying patients in hospitals.
Most of the Nigerians teaching hospitals daily ‘imprison’
patients who are unable to fully settle their bills. In fact,
they even have a special ward for them. Imagine a woman after
delivery probably though a Caesarean Section was ‘chained
down’ on her bed in most cases with her hungry new born
baby, naked without clothes in cold weather having been abandoned
by not only relatives and friends but also by her poor husband.
Not only that, I helplessly listened to the plea of a father
whose only son had been lying in the hospital for a couple
of months awaiting surgery until “a reasonable sum”
was deposited. The poor man was told to go and raise at least
half of the would be bill of more than N60,000 after the CMD
had looked into his case and had slashed it down so that the
NGO could probably settle the remaining sum. To my surprise,
the old man explained his ordeal to the presiding officer:
how he initially sold his goat for a sum of N3,000. The sum
which he used part to transport his only son and himself down
to the hospital from his remote village. On getting to the
hospital, he used the remaining change to get a card before
the son was even seen by a doctor.
Now, according to the man, he didn’t even have a dime
to take him back to the village in order for him to go and
sell his only property on earth; the second goat, which was
a female. Ask me, for how much? Questions rushed through my
mind; so, how has he been surviving since he brought his son,
who has been feeding him? Also, the old man said he had lost
his wife: the mother of the son through a similar case. When
he returns with N3,000 out of which he would transport himself
down, what would he use the remaining to do? To feed the son,
himself or clear the bill after the surgery?
Let me not bore you with countless sad stories. The list is
endless. A visit to teaching hospitals would interest you.
Despite all these, custodians of the teaching hospitals are
still so heartless to share the national cake at the expense
of people’s dear lives. Couldn’t the ‘unspent
budget’ have been diverted into charity to teaching
hospitals to settle wretched patients’ bills or at least
for free treatment or to even purchase common paracetamol?
Similarly, I further wonder how the so-called officials in
the Ministry of Health expect a civil servant to be treated
with a meager N550 in the National Health Insurance Scheme.
Is the money meant for paracetamol, syringe or plaster? I
am not an advocate of the National Health Insurance Scheme
whose activities should also be monitored strictly as no Nigerian
is clean in the real sense of it. At least, we should not
rule out the fact that there are still many reputable and
honest private medical practitioners if only the scheme would
put them to test. Let them use the ‘unspent money to
better treat Nigerians for better value for money and better
productivity of the Nigerian work force.
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