The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has created serious challenges in the public health sector. In this investigation, JULIANA FRANCIS examines the issues
Our ordeal in public hospitals – Patients
It’s been over 40 days since Tope Asoroda was buried, leaving behind his wife, Oluwakemi and four children. Oluwakemi still appears to be shell shocked over his demise. Her eyes are puffy and red from crying. The mood in the house is mournful. She ignores the pleas of surrounding sympathisers.
Tope died at the Lagos State Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) and the drama leading to his death is still fresh in the memories of his friends and family members.
Family members blamed LASUTH for his death. According to them, Tope had a stroke, but rather than commence immediate treatment to save his life, doctors tagged his file COVID-19 and went further to place him at an isolation centre at the hospital. He died the following day.
The widow refused to speak as she wept into a soaked handkerchief. She beckoned on Daniel, her 15-year-old son, to tell our reporter how his father died.
Daniel said: “My father woke up and complained that one of his eyes was hurting him. He also said he couldn’t smell. We took him to a private hospital, but after three days, the hospital referred him to LASUTH. He was not attended to until after several hours. The doctor wrote COVID-19 on his file. He died the following day.”
Tope’s friends want to know why his file was tagged COVID-19, when no test was carried out.
Some of them argued that if Tope truly died of COVID-19, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) would have visited his home and neighbours to quarantine them. They also said the referring hospital would have been shut down.
Tope’s friend, Mr. Dayo, who was among those who took him to LASUTH, described his death as a waste.
He recalled the deceased’s last journey. “On 30th of April, we were in the office, when he said he was not feeling well. He called after a day or two to say that he had a stroke. I told him that was not how strokes used to attack people. But before then, he had had issues of Diabetes and High Blood Pressure (BP).”
According to Dayo, Oluwakemi later called to say Tope’s health had not improved. Friends contributed money and moved him to a private hospital.
Dayo narrated: “When I saw him at the hospital, I didn’t like his condition. One of his eyes and head were swollen, and his mouth was tilted to the other side of his face. It was obviously a stroke, though the CT scan showed nothing. The doctor referred us to LASUTH to see a neurosurgeon, saying it could be a tumour. We got there at 11a.m., but doctors didn’t attend to him until 8p.m.
They said there was no bed space. They only attended to him after a phone call from the information minister. One of the doctors said they should take him to the stroke ward, another came to take his temperature. His temperature was high and the doctor started asking questions relating to COVID-19. I told him that Tope had a stroke and urged him to look at his medical history from the referring hospital. Tope had been inside my car for hours, inside the sun, what did the doctor expect his temperature to be? After dilly-dallying, they took him to the isolation centre there. He was the only one there. The last thing I saw before I rushed to my office was someone bringing oxygen.
He had never had a breathing difficulty; I still don’t understand why he was put on oxygen. He was put at the isolation centre and abandoned. He died because he was not given medical attention on time!”
The allegation, that some public hospitals deliberately label patients’ files with a ‘COVID-19’ tag, without requisite evidence, is fast gaining ground and as such, many patients have refused to attend public health care facilities. In addition, patients also allege that since the COVID-19 outbreak, medical personnel in public hospitals prefer to focus on those infected by the pandemic, while those with terminal illnesses are said to have been forgotten and abandoned.
Our investigation revealed that since the outbreak of COVID-19, there are rising cases of preventable deaths and health complications, due to the sudden negligence of other healthcare segments. With over 90 per cent of government’s finances and human resources focused on COVID-19, less attention on other health needs seems to be triggering depreciation in Routine Health (RH) services, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (RMNCH) services, Family Planning (FP) services and Routine Immunisation (RI) services. Also, progress made against Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) such as malaria, polio, cancers, diabetes, and hypertension has been disrupted.
Eve, who went to the Warri Central Hospital in Delta State, to complain of toothache, after her bizarre experience, she called the COVID-19 pandemic and NCDC a scam. She said: “When I got there, they asked me if I had just returned from overseas, if I had a fever, was coughing or had difficulty breathing. I told them I only had a dental problem. They gave me a form, written ‘no travel’ and ‘COVID-19 patient discharged.’ I regretted not snapping the form with my phone. When I got to the Dental Section they collected the form from me and asked me to return in a month’s time. In fact, they asked everyone who came to the hospital that day to come back in a month’s time.”
Similarly, a publisher, Mr. Dipo Kehinde, said that last week, he took his daughter to Massey Hospital on Lagos Island, after she started having issues with her voice.
He said: “We were asked to do a series of tests. We did one at Foremost Radiology Consultants Limited in Surulere for N65,000. Within two days N100,000 was gone. We were also referred to the Lagos Island General Hospital to ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) Section. That one was for N25,000. But when we got there, they said the machine will not work until after COVID-19. Do they know when COVID-19 will end? Now, we have all those expensive test results, but we can’t see a doctor until we do the ENT. Luckily, two days ago, my daughter got her voice back. I started thinking: What if it has been a life-threatening ailment? There is trouble out there really! This is not the time for anybody to fall sick.”
Adanma, who uses the Air Force Base Hospital, at Ikeja, equally laments: “Every other ward, except for the General Outpatient Department (GOPD), has been shut down till after COVID-19. Before you see a doctor, you’ll do a test to confirm that your sense of taste and smell are all right. As we speak, I cannot see any consultant because of COVID-19. I have a particular health issue that I have been managing, through the help of a consultant, but now, no consultants are seeing patients. Even when you go for normal treatment, you’ll be made to go through COVID-19 screening. I had to fill a form before I could be allowed to go into the hospital. I was negative to all the questions posed. All these sections, Gynaecology, Paediatrics, MOPD, Cardiology, Orthopaedics, Eye and Dentist, have been shut down till after COVID-19.”
