By Izunna Okafor, Awka
A middle-aged man has alleged that health workers, especially doctors at the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital (also known as the Anambra State University Teaching Hospital), Amaku, Awka, are gambling with people’s lives at the hospital.
The man, identified as Mr. Uche Ileabuchi, lamented that he had observed, with great disappointment, what he described as the lackadaisical attitudes and levity with which the doctors in the hospital do their works, to the point of toying with human lives.
Recounting his ordeal in a video that has gone viral on social media, Mr. Ileabuchi, said his wife who was due for surgery had been coming to the hospital since last week Monday (March 4, 2024), which was the date she was given to come. He said they were coming all the way from their hometown, Agulu in Anaocha Local Government Area of the State, to the hospital.
He, however, lamented that when they came to the hospital that Monday, after having been delayed till late in the evening, the doctors told them to go home and come back on Wednesday of the same week, as the the surgery would now be performed on Thursday.
He said they left after having wasted their whole day there at the hospital, and then returned on Wednesday (as appointed), explaining that they even slept over in the hospital that day, with all the discomforts and mosquito bites, till the following day, being Thursday, the new day they scheduled for the surgery.
Mr. Ileabuchi recounted that his wife also starved from Wednesday till that Thursday, as they instructed her not to eat food, including their 5-month old baby, who could not be breastfed that period because the mother didn’t eat anything.
According to him, that Thursday, they waited for the doctor and the surgery till late in the evening (with his wife still starving), before someone came and told them to go and come back next week, that the doctor who was supposed to perform the surgery went for an occasion and would not be able to come to work again that day, as he would need to have some rest (probably after dancing at the occasion).
“When he told me this, I was like Oga, do you know we are coming from a very far place, and I have been leaving everything I’m doing and my daily hustle to come to this hospital, and we all know the condition of this country now,” he recounted.
While expressing his disappointment, Mr. Ileabuchi said since they had no option, he left with his wife and little child, only to return to the hospital the upper Wednesday (March 12) as rescheduled. He lamented that they had been in the hospital since that Wednesday and even slept over there again till Thursday, with her wife and baby still starving, as she was also instructed not to eat.
According to him, they were earlier told that the doctor would come at about 9.am that Thursday and perform the surgery.
Meanwhile, as at the late evening when the video went viral, Mr. Ileabuchi said the doctor was yet to be seen, while his wife who ate last since 10.am the previous day Wednesday, had not eaten anything again since then, despite her condition and their new baby who has also been starved of breast milk.
“Since that 10.am of yesterday till now, my wife has not eaten anything, as we are waiting for the doctor to come, and yet he is nowhere to be found, and small time now, they may tell us to go and come back again,” he regretted.
While revealing that many other patients in the hospital still suffer similar fate in the hands of the COOUTH Amaku doctors, Mr. Ileabuchi called for the urgent attention and intervention of the Anambra State Governor, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo. He opined that many of the doctors in the hospital have and obviously give more attention and time to their private hospitals than they do to patients in the teaching hospital and other public hospitals where they are employed, adding that this accounts for major reason why people die like fowls in most government’s hospital.
Lamenting that most doctors in public hospitals toy with human lives, especially if the person doesn’t have connection or anyone in the hospital, he reiterated that the doctors’ levity and carelessness undoubtedly contribute significantly to the number of avoidable deaths in public hospitals. He also regretted that this trend has thrived because the doctors and their activities in the hospital are not closely monitored.
According to him, graduates complain that there is no job in the country, while those doctors who were opportune and fortunate enough to get jobs are being lackadaisical about it and toying with human lives.
“Everyone who sees this video should please help me pass the message to the Governor and other appropriate authority for urgent attention and intervention, so that these doctors will stop toying and playing gambling with people’s lives here. Human lives are too precious to be treated this way,” he appealed.
Efforts by this reporter, Izunna Okafor, to contact the Chief Medical Director of the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Amaku, Dr. Josephat Akabuike, for his reaction, proved abortive, as calls to his phone were not connecting, while he was yet to respond to the messages and the video sent to him by this reporter, as at the time of this publication.
Watch the video below:
