The Chief Medical Director of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, UUTH, Dr.Emem Abasi Bassey said the management would not channel all its resources in the fight against coronavirus pandemic in the state.
He added that doing so would lead to preventable deaths of patients suffering from other sicknesses.
The CMD who disclosed this on Monday when Members of the Civil Liberties Organisation led by the chairman, Otuekong Franklyn Isong came for on the spot assessment of the newly commissioned Isolation centre in the facility said the management set up the centre at a minimal cost.
He said due to limited resources, the management converted and refurbished one of the already existing buildings into an isolation centre in compliance with the Federal Government’s directive that every teaching hospital must have an isolation centre.
He said the facility which in-house 24 rooms with toilets and four suites has an intensive care unit and a mini laboratory managed by well trained members of staff.
The CMD who lamented over paucity of funds regretted that the hospital spends about N15 million every month on diesel as there was either irregular power supply or low voltage in the area to power their medical equipments.
According to him, “we have advised people to stay away from the hospital this period, but i was surprised this morning to see the number of people in our out-patients ward, that is to show you that people are sick of other related diseases other than covid 19.
“Everyday we have people die of preventable deaths because what we seem to focus on, is covid-19. We cannot afford to put all our resources in the management of covid-19, we have to keep the hospital running even though our Internally Generated Revenue has dropped drastically.
“In terms of materials, we have to make use of our already existing equipments. Our Bio-medical Engineers and Mechanics have risen to the occasion. About 90 to 100% of those beautiful trolleys and beds you just saw were in a state of disrepair, until our Engineers fixed them. We removed two ventilators from the normal ICU to the Isolation ICU, the beauty of the Isolation centre is that we cannot place a suspected case with a patient suffering from other sickness side by side.”
On the state of the hospital’s morgue , Dr. Bassey admitted that even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the morgue was filled up and there were plans to conduct a mass burial.
He said, “We were preparing to commence the process of mass burial because the morgues here are filled up before this corona virus struck. We have to get approvals from the ministry of health, local government and do some radio announcements at least for six weeks, so that people can claim bodies of their dead relatives and friends, but i can still say that covid-19 has up the ante.”
He however urged the state government to ease the lockdown on burials but under a controlled atmosphere were the precautionary measures against covid 19 would be strictly observed.
In his remarks, Isong, the Chairman of CLO expressed satisfaction over the level of work done at the Isolation unit and called on relevant agencies especially, foreign agencies who have offices domiciled in the State to partner with UUTH to uplift the healthcare delivery in the State.
