The Nigerian Medical Association has lamented over state of health facilities owned by state governments, adding that state governments are not paying enough attention to equipping such facilities.
The association noted the inadequacy of medical experts and equipment.
The NMA President, Dr Uche Ojinmah, added that the state Hospitals have been most affected by brain drain in the country.
“Workers in some state hospitals are being owed several months’ salary arrears. So how can they function,’ Ojinmah wondered.
He added, “Staytes are being neglected, some state teaching hospitals as of today cannot boast of a complete department. You go there and see only a skeletal number of people, and the state governors are happy. The doctors overwork but everybody expects them to behave well.”
Ojinmah urged state governments to focus on improving secondary health sectors for effective management.
He said, “That it is a state hospital doesn’t mean it should be a shadow of itself; it should be able to render services to the people. That is why you come to the teaching hospitals and see somebody with malaria coming for treatment.
“As a dermatologist, there are some dermatological issues I should handle, not eczema, ringworm. They are not what I am trained to handle. An average person in a primary or secondary health system should be able to take care of those things if they are functional while I focus on more serious things like skin cancers, and tumours. But the primary health care system is gone. The state hospitals are overgrown with weeds.
“It’s only the teaching hospitals that are functioning, so everybody comes to the teaching hospital”, he concluded.
