• Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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BusinessDay

Patients shun hospitals on coronavirus fears

hospitals

Kachi, 30, was finally going to part with a relationship of inconvenience with ovarian torsion, a condition that occurs when an ovary twists around the ligaments that hold it in place. A surgery billed for April would have launched her into a life free of distressful menstrual cycle. But COVID-19 happened and the procedure became a victim.

The jarring evidence of hospitals in themselves turning into volatile bases for transmission on the back of poor testing capacity and shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) crushed her confidence to proceed with the surgery she had anticipated for almost a lifetime. The procedure was deferred indefinitely.

“I’ve been waiting my whole life for this procedure. Now it’s happened this way,” Kachi told BusinessDay. “What scares me is people saying it’s going to take years before the virus fades out and things are not ever going back to normal.”

In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, Nigerians have been increasingly anxious of a higher risk of exposure to the pandemic in hospitals than in other public places. Many still summon the courage to use public buses or visit crowded markets but seem especially fearful of seeking medical intervention in hospitals even when needed.

Some, such as Kachi, have had their elective surgeries deferred on the altar of fear, while others even with terminal and underlying illnesses demanding routine medical check-up have left their health to suffer longer than necessary before presenting their case at hospitals, a trend which Oluwajimi Sodipo, a family consultant, warns is dangerous.

Major government-run hospitals, including the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and General Hospital Bwari, Abuja, have long restricted operations to essential services like accidents, hypertensive, diabetic, cancer emergencies, and acute conditions.

The National Health Management Information System (NHMIS) data show outpatient visit dropped from 4 million in pre-coronavirus period to about 2 million; antenatal visits from 1.3 million to 655,000, skilled birth attendance from 158,374 to less than 99,000, while immunisation services reduced to about half.

Patients needing non-essential care including elective surgeries now have to look in the direction of private hospitals.

But instead of an expected surge in patient presentation, few private hospitals can attest to having their facility overrun. In fact, there appears to be less incentive for private hospitals to run at a time when testing kits are scarce and the cost of arming health workers with PPE has shot up unimaginably.

BusinessDay in an April 28 report found that many hospitals couldn’t afford to kit their doctors and nurses as it cost N25,000 or more to kit a doctor or nurse properly each day with PPE.

“Patients are afraid to come to the hospital, seriously. No business. They think they will contract the virus in the hospital,” a Lagos hospital owner said. “And no one is giving us palliatives like PPEs to be bold to even attend to those who brave it and come. No testing kits.”

Babatunde Palomeras, managing director, J-Rapha Hospital, Lekki, had the same to story tell.

In the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, hospital owners lamented that the pandemic has led to a decline in patients’ inflow with most patients resorting to self-medication. The few who manage to approach hospitals struggle to pay bills, Jonathan Esowanne, founder of Summit Hospital, said, explaining that his businesses had been battered.

The situation isn’t different for Finbas Odey, manager and founder of Brighter Life Hospital, who says it is easier passing a camel through the eye of a needle than convincing some patients to approach the hospital. Only those who are in critical condition which self-medication can’t handle seek help – a situation he describes as an offshoot of ignorance of the implications of staying away from the hospital.

Odey fears that Nigeria risks more infections should people who contract the virus avoid the hospital and end up transmitting it to others.

BusinessDay’s visit to some FCT hospitals found that most do not have PPEs and some do not adhere to preventive guidelines, particularly hand hygiene, social distancing or the mandatory use of face masks.

Strategies devised

However, all is not a tale of gloom as hospitals are equally devising strategies to maintain communication with patients and keep their health under control.

Brighter Life Hospital in Abuja, for instance, has devised a strategy to use an online platform in interfacing with patients without hospital visits.

Lanre Yusuf, a medical doctor at a private hospital in Lagos, confirms some doctors have found a new way of working – conducting appointments by video and phone.

Though a state-run hospital, the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) is also using the technology of telemedicine to monitor several cases and guide them on measures to be taken.

“We need to start using some of the mechanisms we have, especially e-medicine and telemedicine, so that if people cannot present physically, they can still reach healthcare experts,” said Sodipo, who was quoted earlier.

“In my clinic, we call those who have registered to find out about how they are doing, discuss the medications they are on, and check complaints. For those that need to come to the hospital, we advise them and it has been working out fine. It is something every hospital should try to key into,” he told BusinessDay.