By Sola Ogundipe
FORTUNES of healthcare delivery in Nigeria would take a turn for the better if public office holders utilised public medical facilities in the country more judiciously than they currently do.
The patronage of public health care institutions by public office holders would also boost the level of confidence in the nation's healthcare system as well as tackle the problem of underutilisation of facilities and equipment.
Chief Medical Director, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex, OAUTHC, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Professor Olusanya Adejuyigbe who made the assertions, argued that it is only through patronage of public officers that public hospitals in Nigeria could enjoy the dual advantage of being appreciated and its leaders would see need to invest more in local infrastructure and human resources.
In a chat, Adejuyigbe opined that 95 per cent of people traveling abroad are not going strictly for medical reasons. "Many people go out not because of medical reasons alone and sometimes they will not want to voice out why they go out for the treatment. He stated that a lot of women decide to have their babies abroad not because babies cannot be delivered in Nigeria, but because they might want to increase the likelihood of wanting their babies to acquire foreign passports in future.
“That is not medical reason. Lot of people migrate for medical treatment not because of incompetence or lack of equipment but for varieties of reasons. I cannot say we have all the infrastructure and personnel on ground to take care of all medical conditions.
"The truth is that our expertise and equipment are currently underutilized and if public office holders patronise us it would have been an advantage in that it will give local people a sense of appreciation that the President's wife, Governors' wives, Senator's wives and their husbands are all here for treatment and through this they will know what we are in need of. If I now stand in the committee of the National Assembly, it will not sound as if I want to use the
money for personal gain.”
Adejuyigbe who lamented that the health sector was under funded, urged government at the top to provide sufficient funds to enable OAUTCH to complete its projects.
"This year (2012), the budget we have is N405 million. Last year, government did not release up to N410 million. Ideally if the left-over balance had been given, we would have completed some of the on-going projects either buying equipment or building structures. Each year, we now have projects which we have started with approval without such projects being completed because what they gave is not enough to complete these projects.
On priority areas of the institution, he remarked: "We now have more experts in certain areas and we believe that if these services are adequately rendered, the health of Nigerians will be better thereof.
“We should be here providing high quality tertiary health care in all specialisations of medicine. We are able to do some but we are handicapped in some others where we have trained personnel. For example we have our transplanting; they can do more with a little help particularly in funding of the processes. We would have been able to virtually do one procedure everyday if virtually everything is on ground personally. But there is no donor and people did not have money to carry out the surgery you will see a patient in your care wasting
away despite the fact that you can help and it a big frustration.
Another one is in the area of open heart surgery, we have established but we are yet to have the advantage because of the cost per patient which is quite exorbitant.
“There is need for expansion of our infrastructure base to take care of increased patronage and personnel we have on ground.
We have set up and provide a minimal heart surgery and recently we our gynecologist did a minimal laparoscopy. We are also setting up a cardiac care unit which is about 40 percent complete hopefully to finish it this year but I am afraid if balance of what we need is not released we may not able to finish it until next year.”
