The Senate, on Wednesday, resolved to probe the poor state of the Nigerian teaching hospitals following an investigative story published by the Daily Trust on Monday.
The motion to investigate the state of the teaching hospitals in Nigeria was moved by Senator David Umoru, APC Niger State.
Daily Trust had reported, as its lead story, the poor quality and high cost of services in Nigerian teaching hospitals.
Though, the teaching hospitals are expected by their mandate to train current and future medical personnel for the country, their current poor condition made it extremely difficult for them to provide such services.
Consequently, the Senate in its resolution, mandated its committee on health to conduct an emergency investigative hearing on the state of healthcare services in Nigerian teaching hospitals and report back within one week.
The Senate also resolved to summon the Minister of Health Prof Isaac Adewole to brief it on the current state of facilities and healthcare services in the teaching hospitals.
Senators equally urged the Federal Government to adopt a policy on subsidizing the medical expenses of patients with terminal ailments such as cancer and kidney failure.
They further urged the Federal Government to immediately adopt short and long term measures that will holistically address the challenges confronting the teaching hospitals and retool them for excellent tertiary healthcare services in the country.
Based on the investigation, published by Daily Trust, obsolete facilities, broken infrastructure, poor electricity supply, and inadequate funding are some of the major challenges making it difficult for Nigerian teaching hospitals to provide treatment to patients with complex ailments.
Apart from the fact that the hospitals are overwhelmed by a large number of patients, the medical facilities’ mandate of training current and future health professionals is also being affected.
Apart from scrambling to pay the huge medical bills, patients have to stay for days for them to consult a physician.
In most cases, laboratory and other medical facilities for treatment of cancer, kidney, brain, among others, are either obsolete or dilapidating. In hospitals where the equipment is functional, poor electricity supply prevents officials from utilizing them.
The hospitals, according to our investigations, are mostly overcrowded because patients with ailments that can be cured at primary and secondary health care facilities are also trooping to the teaching hospitals.
The poor hygiene in some of these medical centres of excellence are capable of infecting patients with additional ailments as they are meant to stay with uncleaned gutters, uncollected refuse and widely opened septic tanks.
