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Raymond Ozoji, Awka
Anambra lawmakers yesterday at the first plenary raised the alarm over what they described as the sorry state of hospitals as well as the deplorable conditions of roads across the entire state.
Dr.Timothy Ifedioramma of Njikoka 1 state constituency decried the melancholic state of the Enugwu-Ukwu general hospital in Njikoka local government area where he expressed great worry that snakes chased doctors and nurses on duty while attending to patients.
Ifedioramma noted that the hospital has been overgrown by bushes which he attributed to the remote reason why snakes and other reptiles took refuge in the hospital while medical staff scampered for safety on seeing them.
According to him, “The government has really abandoned that hospital. Each time I confront the commissioner, they would say they want to upgrade it to a general hospital. But we can’t wait until it is upgraded because the way it is now, nothing works there. No lab and the mortuary got burnt in December last year; all of that is as a result of negligence and abandonment by government.
“Rural women don’t have places to be delivered of their babies. Private hospitals are charging a whole lot and government hospitals are non existent. I want to get some of them into health insurance but at the same time, how can somebody who is sick in the village go to Awka or Onitsha to access medical care, when we have a very big structure like Enugwu-Ukwu general hospital.”
Though he said government might not be aware of the deplorable state of the hospitals, he noted that there was need to draw attention to the hospital for it to be equipped so that people at the grassroots could access the health facility.
Ifedioramma said, “As big as the hospital is, only the two doctors operate there. One will do day, the other will do night. There are no offices. The doctors sleep in their cars at night. I almost wept when I went there on oversight duty and saw patients sitting on the floor. It is not good.”
Also, the lawmaker representing Nnewi-South 2 state constituency Hon. Johnbosco Obi called on the commissioner for health to as a matter of urgent public importance respond to the poor state of Ukpor general hospital in Nnewi-South council area.
The lawmaker bemaoned that despite the fact that the hospital was built by Ukpor people and handed over to the Anambra state government, the hospital according to him, has been forgotten by government.
He alleged that a pregnant woman being attended to by nurses at night was abandoned by the nurses, leaving the pregnant woman to her fate in the dead of the night and that it took the intervention of vigilante operatives who heard her voice while she was crying for help to rescue her.
The lawmaker therefore appealed to the commissioner for health to come to the aid of Ukpor community and entire Nnewi-South 2 state constituency by refurbishing the hospital and make it functional to save them from avoidable deaths.
Also, the representative of Anambra-East state constituency Hon. Obinna Chris Emeneka made a passionate appeal to the commissioner for health to look into the pressing needs of the primary health care facility situated in Igbariam community.
Emeneka noted that the primary health care centre in Igbariam was no longer hospitable, accessible and habitable as he explained that the roof of the health care center was licking and that the medical personnel could no longer access the patients.
The lawmaker said health was one of the enablers of the present administration in Anambra state and as such there was an urgent need for government to improve on the health indicators of the state through refurbishments of health facilities to enable his constituents and the entire citizenry to access quality health care delivery in the state.
