Expert Raises Alarm Over Abia Hospitals … As Kidnappers Force Doctors To Flee Aba

Medical practitioners in Abia State have raised alarm over the possibility of handling emergency situations requiring medical attention in federal and state-owned tertiary health institutions in the state because they were ill-equipped to save lives in such situations.
Lack of equipment aside, the Nigerian Medical Association, has also raised alarm that medical practitioners were deserting Abia because of the security situation in the state, particularly Aba city.
The practitioners made this revelation in the keynote address delivered by Professor Joshua Ogbonnaya, a renowned gynaecologist at the opening ceremony of 2009 Physicians Week organised by the Abia State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA). The event was held at FMC, Umuahia, on the theme is: “Save Lives, Make Hospitals Safe in Emergencies,”
Ogbonnaya said that the situation is so bad that none of the hospitals including tertiary health institutions like the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia and the Abia State University Teaching Hospital (ABSUTH), Aba, measured up in terms of facilities and personnel to handle emergency cases.
“Having outlined what should be the basic minimum standard for a modern Emergency Department (ED)(or hospital), one would like to know whether there is any of the existing EDs in Abia State (including the Tertiary medical institutions of ABSUTH and the Federal Medical Centre, FMC), which measures up to be labelled as a functionally equipped and staffed Emergency Department. The answer is in the negative,” Prof Ogbonnaya,a former Pro-Chancellor of Abia State University, said.
He enjoined the medical practitioners to bring the sorry situation to the attention of the policy makers, adding that Abia deserves functional EDs given its geographical position as gateway to many states with the attendant road accidents occasioned by dilapidated road networks.
State chairman of Abia NMA, Dr Bernard Orji, lamented that the collapse of social infrastructure and insecurity in Aba was engendering the flight of medical practitioners as well as other professionals from the commercial city.
“If unchecked this situation will surely cause an eclipse of commerce and good living in our society. Another year of this exodus of doctors, other professionals, industrialists, investors, artisans and it’s ‘kaput’ for Aba,” he warned.
However, the state governor, Chief Theodore Orji, in his address, told the medical practitioners that things would not be allowed to keep going bad as his administration has been striving hard to bring quality healthcare delivery to the people of Abia.
The governor, who was the Guest of Honour at the event, said that government was doing its best to provide the needed facilities in the hospitals and warned medical practitioners against resorting to strike when aggrieved as there was no way lives could be saved if those who should be saving lives down tools.