Manpower shortage rocks Rivers hospitals
Patients and health personnel in hospitals across Rivers State are facing hardships as a result of the few number of doctors in public hospitals in the state.
A visit to some of the state government-owned hospitals such as the Briathwaite Memorial Hospitals, and other health centres in Port Harcourt revealed that the few available doctors were overwhelmed by the number of patients.
When our reporter visited Briathwaite Memorial Hospitals, the waiting rooms were filled with many patients. A patient at the hospital, who gave his name simply as Boma, said he had been waiting to see a doctor for two days.
“I have been coming here for two days just to see a doctor. The number of patients outnumbers the doctors in the hospital.
“From my estimation, I think it is one doctor to about 60 patients. That is the reason why everywhere is crowded with patients waiting to see a doctor,” Boma said.
He attributed the reason for influx of patients to the hospital to break down of primary health centres in the rural areas.
“Many rural dwellers who are supposed to go to primary health centres come to Port Harcourt and that is the reason you are seeing all this crowd. Doctors are not enough to handle the number of patients. One doctor cannot attend to all the patients at a time. They are human beings and can break down,” he stated.
Shortage of medical personnel is also affecting health care delivery services at Oyigbo Health Centre. A patient at the hospital, Mrs Patricia Amaka, said nurses attended to her anytime she visited the hospital.
“When the health centre was commissioned, a medical personnel was attached to the hospital and the doctor was living in the quarters. But problems started when armed robbers started terrorising doctors and other residents living in the quarters.
“The doctor reallocated immediately and started coming from outside the hospital. He later started coming twice a week. Now only nurses attend to patients in the hospital.”
Another patient, Mike Nsofor, said the centre only renders antenatal services for pregnant women.
He called on the state government to engage medical doctors and deploy them to state owned hospitals.
The state chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) had recently raised alarm over the shortage of medical doctors in the state government owned hospitals.
During the 57th Annual General Meeting and Scientific Week of the Nigeria Medical Association in Port Harcourt tagged ‘Medical Professional Advancement, Distress from Within and Outside: Breaching the Generational Gap in Medicine’, Rivers State chapter chairman of the association, Dr Datonye Alasia, also expressed concern over the low enrolment of students into the medical profession.
He said doctors in the state faced challenges daily because of the shortage of manpower, pointing out that the association had written the state government requesting that retirees should be retained on contract basis to resolve the manpower challenges.
“We wish to improve the medical services we give people. We need to help improve the health care in the state. There is shortage of personnel in the state. The ratio is one doctor to 400 patients. We are really lagging behind. We want to complement on the issue of manpower,” he said during the meeting.
He expressed happiness on the formation of a medical department in the Rivers State University noting that it was an encouragement to the health profession in the state.
When contacted by the reporter, he said the state government has started addressing the issue of shortage of medical personnel.
Dr Alasia said “Two issues have been addressed; the issue of extension of services for retirees has been addressed as automatic re-engagement has been approved for them. Another issue is manpower development and capacity building for the personnel. That issue is being implemented as various training programmes have been initiated by the state government.”
However he said the state government is yet to look into the issue of engaging graduate doctors in its hospitals.
He called on Governor Nyesom Wike to engage more doctors to tackle shortage of personnel in government owned hospitals.
Daily Trust findings also revealed that the administration of Governor Chibuike Amaechi had constructed 60 primary health centres across the 23 local government areas of the state, aimed at taking government health facilities to the grassroots and to relieve rural dwellers of the stress of coming to Port Harcourt to attend to their medical needs.
The centres were completed and fully furnished with medical facilities.
About 200 medical personnel were engaged to work in the hospitals but the facilities fell short of their targeted mandate less than one year after because of poor management and because some of the medical doctors engaged to work at the centres were reluctant to work in the rural areas.