Inadequate medical facilities in Nigeria has been identified as the greatest impediment to the management of the increasingly ravaging COVID-19 cases in the country.
The President, Association of Resident Doctors, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Dr. Philip Osuagwu, made the observation in an interview in Abakaliki on Friday.
Osuagwu, who noted that the nation has adequate and qualified manpower to handle the pandemic in the country, tasked the government to provide all needed facilities in the hospitals rather than shopping for manpower from elsewhere.
Osuagwu, speaking on the outcome of the online meeting of the Resident Doctors in the hospital, decried the development in which many doctors in the country have contacted the deadly virus in the cause of their duties, attributing it to inadequate Personal Protective Equipments.
He warned members of the Association never to attend to patients without protection to avoid losing their lives and endangering those of their families in the process.
He urged the government to urgently make available the complete PPEs and all other health facilities that can help in prompt identification of cases and their effective management in order to better contain the spread of the virus in the country.
According to him, such working facilities as N95 face mask, surgical glasses and face shield for doctors doing surgery, well equipped accident and emergency clinics and internal medicine, among others would help boost the doctors’ confidence while discharging their duties.
While commending the Ebonyi State Government for its efforts to curtail the spread of the virus, Osuagwu further called on the Federal Government to increase the COVID-19 testing capacity across the country such that random testing can be done to identify more carriers of the virus.
He further advocated for robust insurance packages for health workers who die while saving lives in the country during this pandemic, even as he charged the Federal Government to make the distribution of palliatives to citizens more transparent
He alleged that politicisation of the palliatives distribution and hunger in many quarters had contributed to some people defying the lockdown order across the country.
Osuagwu lamented: “Over 100 doctors had contacted this virus in the process of saving lives because there are no protective equipments in Nigerian hospitals and this has caused panic among the health workers.
“We urge the government to look at the efforts of the health workers and provide those things that are necessary to ensure that they are working, and to ensure that while they are working they are not exposed to getting this virus because they also have their families to go to.
“Government should provide the PPEs that are required to care for patients because it could get to a point people will start being afraid to see patients.
“As the cases keep increasing, the scare will become even more among the health workers
.
“So this is something the government should actually look into to see what can be done.
“In AEFUTHA, we don’t have enough PPEs to use because what is happening now is that patients pay for the mask to be used.
“They will be asked to wait for it to be billed to the patient folder before the health personnel will attend to the patient and by so doing, something might go wrong because it delays patient care.
“The problem in Nigeria is the issue of implementation of certain policies.
“For instance, the issue of lockdown, which is to ensure that people do not move around to contact the virus, but because there are no palliatives, the citizens violate the law.
“So I encourage the government to look at those aspects and do something about it because even the palliative they claim to be sharing is being politicised because most people don’t benefit from it.
“So the Federal Government should make it more transparent.
“Also, there is this issue with testing, and I want the government to increase the testing capacity such that random testing can be done, and more people identified, and that will go a long way in solving the problem sooner than expected because without that testing, the virus will continue to spread.”
The medical practitioner maintained that the increasing cases of coronavirus was expected.
According to Osuagwu, it was so because once a case is identified, there are contacts who may over time come down with the symptoms or may be diagnosed as carriers because they in one way or the other interacted with the case.
Like a chain, he said, the infection multiplies as contacts increase from one case to another.
Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp
