The Edo State chapter of Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, has raised alarm over health facilities in the state.
Dr Emmanuel Osaigbovo, the state chairman of NMA, while briefing
journalists in Benin city, called for immediate restoration of health
facilities, adding that doctors use candles and lanterns in hospital
wards rather than electricity.
He urged the state government to declare state of emergency in the
health sector and renovate health care facilities in order to stop
unnecessary deaths in the hospital.
“Today, there is hardly any functional ward that is befitting for the
people to recover from their infirmities. The wards are dilapidated and
ironically pose a major health risk to those who are being cared for
and those who render services therein.
“In some of these obsolete facilities, doctors in their usual zeal to
work resort to the use of candles and personal rechargeable lanterns
when the authorities fail to provide basic electricity.
“The buildings are falling apart in their numbers due to lack of maintenance.“We seriously hope that there is no collapse of one of those
buildings on people who have come to the hospital to get better or on
those who have come there to make people feel better.
“There is no greater catastrophe than that. The theatres and
laboratories are at best skeletal in the services they render due to
lack of basic equipment and consumables.
“Patients have to seek help in peripheral facilities and most times fall into the hands of quacks”, Osaigbovo lamented.