How hospitable are our hospitals?

By ELEKWACHI CHINEDUM
Posted: Monday, July 26, 2010

The Webster Dictionary defines hospital as an institution equipped and staffed to provide medical and surgical and sometimes psychiatric care for the sick and injured while hospitable is defined as gladly and generously receiving guests and attending to their needs and comfort.
 A visit to any Nigerian hospitals, whether public or private, will reveal that the above definitions have no connection with most of these hospitals.  Not only that the hospitals are in a horrible condition, with grossly limited manpower and facilities, the character and attitude of the medical personnel are far from being hospitable and friendly.
 The reasons for the sorry states of these hospitals are not far fetched.  Right from the point of admission into Colleges of Medicine, the processes are faulty.  Studying Medicine and Surgery as a discipline in any Nigerian University has so much been commercialized that once you can afford the price fixed by that institution, you are already a potential medical doctor.  Some universities have even made it official as they now issue the intending students receipts after making such payment.
 The story is not different during recruitment. The processes of employing medical personnel whose jobs are so sensitive and delicate is so corrupt that emphasis is no longer placed on merit but on sentimental grounds.  Though many of them parade certificates with intimidating grades, only very few can defend these certificates when the chips are down.
 Outside the academic qualification, the character of most of these medical personnel on whose shoulders the lives of people depend leaves much to be desired.  Despite the fact that the certificate a graduate goes home with at the end of his/her studies in school is awarded on two major grounds – character and learning.  But these are more theoretical than practical, these days than ever before. The degree of the hostility displayed by these medical personnel, particularly the auxiliary nurses are so high that some patients, who could have miraculously survived, ended up dying in their hands.   
Does it mean that these ones who are more hostile than friendly when attending to their ‘handicapped guests’ were not taught the ethics of their profession or was it that they were not in the classroom when these serious issues were imparted? 
Worse still, some naturally were born violent, grew up in hostile environment.  Others, abinitio did not want to end up as Doctors or nurses.  But due to the selfish interests of their parents or guardians, they were pushed into these delicate professions, which are supposed to be more of a calling than businesses as they have been shown or exemplified. 
Again, many have ventured into it primarily for financial gains.  Although hospitals should not be run as charitable organizations, but at the same time, profit making should not be the primary reason for establishing one.  Cases abound of doctors who established hospitals hardly visit those hospitals.  They simply employ the services of their colleagues to have ample time to attend to their many other businesses.  Even the few times they visit the hospitals, they are more interested in the money they have realized than the number of lives saved.
 Apart from the human personnel, the structures and the equipment in most of our hospitals are far from the ideal.  The environment is so untidy, raising pungential odor that is not worth breathing and creating enabling environment for mosquitoes to breed.  The wards are so congested and stuffy, the beds and other equipment are begging for replacement.  Some of these hospitals are located in noisy environment. The drugs are grossly inadequate that the feeble patients are unnecessarily overstretched as they are referred to other pharmaceutical shops to procure the drugs.
 Who should be held responsible for these deplorable conditions that most hospitals, particularly the government owned have found themselves in?
 If we must restore the conditions of our hospitals to what they are supposed to be, then we must begin to address these major challenges staring at our faces as a nation. 
 Firstly, the process of admitting students into any medical related discipline must be restructured urgently.  Emphasis should be strictly on merit.  A one time University Vice Chancellor was reported to have asked her own biological daughter to go for Biochemistry instead of Medicine and Surgery she had desired and applied for in UME simply because she did not meet up with the cut - off mark for Medicine.  That singular but bold action virtually closed the doors from people who could have come to ask him for favor on behalf of their wards.  That is an example worth emulating.
 Secondly, parents should take time to study and observe their children early enough in order to discover their gifts and potentials and consequently encourage them to develop them and toe that line.  That you desired to end up a doctor but could not make it eventually is not a justification for pushing your child to studying what is against his/her wish.  Not only will he/she be uncomfortable with that, he/she might not graduate after all.  A story was told of a boy whose dad forced to study Law.  Though he graduated eventually, he handed over the certificate to the dad and settled for what he had flair for – business. 
Thirdly, it is also expedient not only to include in the departmental curriculum, the basic ethics of the profession, but make it compulsory for any one who wants to practice the profession.
 Fourthly, a cursory study of the past records/history of all medical graduates is necessary during recruitment in order to fish out those with violent and radical tendencies.  This will check to a large extent, as well as reduce the hostile attitudes of these medical personnel who are supposed to put up a friendly behavior at work.
 Above all, the government should inject more funds to the public hospitals to enable them recruit more staff to take care of the these teeming populated sick ones as well as procure more drugs and other basic facilities to replace the obsolete ones.  Besides, regular routine checks should be carried out on both public and private hospitals in order to ensure a serene, clean, quiet and conducive environment that is not only healthy, but friendly, to ensure that our hospitals cease being the same Late Gen. Sani Abacha in his speech described as “mere consulting clinics”.