Residents of Kuje Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory, especially the Gbagy and Gade indigenes of the area, have appealed to the Minister of the FCT, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, to save them from what they called “exorbitant prices” of medical services in the Kuje General Hospital.
In a petition signed by Asabe Dantani, Abraham Ishmail, Aisha Dogo Samaila and Dangade Abubakar and forwarded to the office of the minister, the residents said the high prices of medical services, which have been made compulsory for any patient seeking for medical attention, have been driving them back to quacks and dangerous traditional practitioners, especially for women that are pregnant.
The petition, dated August 23, 2016, said the Kuje hospital management has made it compulsory for pregnant women to register with N1,800 each and that each pregnant woman is made to compulsorily pay N10,500 for delivery items even as N25,000 is charged for surgery pack.
The petition said: “All such charges excluding the drugs the woman would require from the point of delivery up to the time of discharge. The unbooked patient is made to pay additional N5,000 for normal delivery and N30,000 for surgery in addition to the booked patients.
“For the booked patient, she must have spent over N50,000 on single delivery, including surgery without drugs at the end of the day, while the unbooked one would have spent close to N100,000 for the same purpose.
“We are asking the honourable minister to save us from this unfriendly medical environment, especially in the Federal Capital Territory where ante-natal services for the pregnant women are supposed to be free. We are also aware of the federal government concern and commitment to the free maternal health care services which must not be allowed to be abused.”
Information has it that most of the women, who can barely afford their transport, usually go to the hospital from remote villages and most times ended up returning to their villages without being attended to for lack of money to settle the hospital bills, even as many of them used to run away after receiving treatments.