Raphael Ede writes on the Udi General Hospital, Udi, Enugu State, where staff are afraid of night duty because of snake attacks and other challenges
On December 5, Chief Paul Aneke, the Chief Security Officer of the Udi General Hospital in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State narrowly escaped a snake bite at the security post.
The elderly man was lucky as the snake was later killed at the door of the security house.
This is not an isolated case as snakes have become regular guests at the General hospital, which the state governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi reconstructed and equipped with facilities on September 17, 2019.
When our correspondent visited the hospital complex on Wednesday, December 8, 2021, the environment was untidy. It was observed that the staff and patients hardly walk around the environment.
It was, however, gathered that in the previous week, a nurse had stopped night duty after a snake entered the hospital ward which shares a common perimeter fence with the Udi Local Government Area headquarters and chased her out along with a patient she was attending to in the night.
The nurse was said to have protested and vowed that she would not come to work in the night again after the incident because of other numerous cases of snakes moving around the hospital environment, wards and offices. The problem was compounded by poor power supply as there has been no light in the hospital for close to six months now.
The Chief Security Officer, Aneke who confirmed the incident, said, “Please you should help us to tell the government to come to our help. Just three days ago, I was lucky to escape a snake attack at the security house.
“On that fateful day, I was coming out of the security house and when I flashed my torch I saw a big snake at the pavement coming inside the security post and that was around 10 pm. I raised the alarm and other colleagues came and luckily we killed it.”
Another staff member, who didn’t want his name mentioned, disclosed that for the past six months that there was no light in the hospital complex and there was no single week that passed that they did not kill one or two snakes in the complex.
According to the worker, because of the regular incidents of snakes moving around the complex, people are now afraid of coming to the hospital again. “Only those who have no choice or can not afford private hospital charges that come and they hardly agree to be admitted in the hospital.”
“In short, if you come to the hospital in the night you will think it is a mortuary. In the night you can only see light in front of the administrative building because of few solar lights mounted there.”
Meanwhile, the governor while inaugurating the reconstructed hospital said that it was the 4th busiest public secondary healthcare facility in the state and the only public secondary healthcare facility within the Udi/Ezeagu Federal Constituency of the state.
He was quoted to have also said that it was the reason his administration repositioned it for more effective and efficient service delivery.
However, less than two years after the hospital which was built by the colonial masters was reconstructed, the hospital lacked basic hospital facilities.
Apart from the frequent snake attacks, the hospital lacks water, adequate staff, has no ambulance, lacks basic drugs and has no electricity supply among others.
A senior staff of the hospital told our correspondent on condition of anonymity that the hospital for over a year and six months now has no water at all.
He said that a thunderstorm destroyed the only borehole built in the complex after three months of construction in 2020 and the hospital management had written several letters to the ministry of works and despite promises to come and fix it but for over a year and six months nothing has been done.
According to him, the hospital, which has 150-capacity beds, has been depending on rainwater collected and stored in a reservoir for its essential water needs.
“And when it finishes, the hospital starts buying water from water vendors. But most often, the hospital cannot afford money to buy water from the vendors. As we speak, all staff and doctors go to the bush to answer nature’s call because there is no water to clean toilets.
“Agreed that there are modern toilet facilities provided in the wards and offices but staff and patients cannot make use of it because of lack of water. Patients equally go to the bush sometimes to defecate especially now that the water in the reservoir has gone down drastically.
“Secondly, there is no electricity supply to the hospital for over six months now after the community allegedly disconnected the hospital for nonpayment of the monthly bill of N50,000 for several months.
“As a result, nurses use phone torch to deliver babies in the labour room and give injections in the night to show you how pathetic our situation here has been.”
The staff member lamented that so many patients especially accident victims have died because the hospital lack ambulances. “This hospital, as big as it is, has no single ambulance. On several occasions, patients die here because there is no ambulance to take them to teaching hospitals. You know because the hospital is located along the old Enugu – Onitsha road often when there is an accident, people including officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps and police bring accident victims here and go away.
“The hospital has limited capacity to manage certain cases, brought to it. Already the people who brought them might have gone and we don’t have an ambulance to take such cases to tertiary Hospitals like the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), ESUT- Parklane, or National Orthopedic Hospital Enugu and by the time you start going to look for a commercial vehicle to convey such patients, often they die here.”
A nurse, who has worked in the facility for 15 years also told our correspondent that the hospital could have been doing well if doctors stay around despite the snake threats.
She stated, “This hospital has six doctors but only one resides at the hospital and five others come from Enugu despite that there are quarters for all of them.“
She, however, noted that the snake attacks have compounded the hospital’s numerous challenges. “We need more manpower here. We need cleaners as you can see for yourself that this is not how the hospital environment is supposed to be. Even four volunteer workers that were engaged by the Chief Medical Director to assist have not been giving appointments. One is paid N13,000 another one N10,000 while two others were paid N5,000. In this country what can N5,000 or even N10,000 do for one in a month?”
She added, “The hospital is even clean now if you had come here two months ago you would know why snakes move freely here. Then you hardly see one block from another because weeds had overgrown everywhere. It was just recently that they cleared it.
“One of our colleagues was on a night shift in August. She was in a ward with a patient when she opened the window and all of a sudden a big snake entered the ward, chased her and the patient with relation away. Since then she doesn’t accept night shift.”
However, when contacted the Chief Medical Director, Lawrence Igbokwe, could neither confirm nor deny the incident.
He only told our correspondent that the community disconnected the hospital from the power supply because they could meet up with the monthly bill between N40,000 to N50,000.
Igbokwe, however, asked our correspondent to go round the hospital and write what you see.
Also when the Special Adviser to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi on Information, Chief Steve Oruruo, was contacted on the telephone on Tuesday, after listening to our correspondent, directed him to call the Commissioner for Health.
“I advise you to call the Commissioner for Health so that he can give you the true position of things. I will equally take it up because I don’t believe in just issuing responses to happenings in the state.
“Secondly, I prefer dealing with those problems and not even trying to seek unnecessary attention – that is if those things are not working and I can influence the government to do it for the benefit of my people I will do it. Beyond calling the Commissioner I will make my own enquiry and instigate a reaction from the government.”
Meanwhile, when the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Ikechukwu Obi, was contacted, he said “I will do a spot check and get back to you,” but at the time of filing this report he was yet to do so.