Uproar over alleged collapsing services, power outages in UNIPORT Teaching Hospital

For weeks, cries arose from the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) by patients and their relations alleging collapsing services, power outages for hours or days, etc.

The one that created huge uproar was the allegation that over 14 babies dies in the incubation room for lack of light to power the incubators.

Social media was awash, saying the babies that died were 19, an allegation that came in the heat of re-appointment politics of the Chief Medical Director, the professor, Henry A. A. Ugboma.

The UPTH was known for invasion of mosquitoes which drove most patients and their relations crazy. They resorted to use of mosquito nets for those in beds, leaving their relations at the mercy of the trauma bearers.

Many said with power not available, the mosquito swarms increased and trauma went higher.

Another consequence of the power outage was water which is a necessity in hospitals. Hygiene cannot be mentioned without frequent water especially at the maternity areas and mortuary. Absence of water and light may have turned the expansive teaching hospital into a dark and smelly zone.

Patients and relations thus seemed to take to social media to pour their hearts out, levying the blames on the doorsteps of Ugboma, who had completed his tenure and was seeking reappointment.

Apparently worried by the allegations, the UPTH management through the Public Relations Officer (PRO), Alexandra Meni Elabha, said the teaching hospital remains one of the best medical tertiary institutions in the committed and is committed to saving lives.

The statement said; “The University of Port-Harcourt Teaching Hospital is a known center for excellence, a citadel of training, research, and healthcare delivery. It is an institution where world’s best medical standards are practised and maintained. This has also helped to make the institution one of the best medical centers in the South-south and Nigeria at large.”

The statement however, said certain persons sadly try to tarnish the image of the hospital by spreading false messages that were inaccurate. “Our attention has been drawn to a story of the 14 to 19 babies dying in the hospital. This is not correct. We did not record any infant mortality in our SCBU (inborn and out-born) as a result of our electrical power outage, due to the faulty transformer, during which the standby generator serviced the hospital for the period, with all emergency areas fully powered.

“Surgeries were never cancelled, neither were our services disrupted. The management of UPTH frowns seriously at such scandalous social media propaganda that is damaging its image. We want the general public to know that we remain committed in our service to humanity,” the hospital authorities said.

Babies did not die – eye witness

BusinessDay investigations however, indicated that babies did not die. A female journalist who delivered by caesarean section (CS) in the place at the time said actually no baby died.

She said what happened was that mothers who had pre-mature babies took them to other hospitals for reliable incubation facility services while they remained in the UPTH.

“Imagine a nurse giving you injection at night with phone torch,” she lamented.

She stated: “I’m not sure babies died because they referred people out since the power supply was unstable and couldn’t sustain those babies. At least, my next bed neighbour had her newborn in another clinic while she stayed back on admission at the UPTH.”

The source said water was a huge issue and fathers were fetching water to give to nurses to bathe their babies because “no water, no bathing of your baby.”