Long-hour of wait is a common phenomenon in Abuja hospitals. Jennifer UGWA who visited public hospitals in the Federal Capital City reports about the frustration of patients who have to endure long delays before they see doctors.

HAVING waited for nearly two hours, most of the patients have resigned to fate. Yet they seemed determined to see doctors before they go home for the day. Unable to stand hunger, some went to patronise the snack and beverages vendors at the hospital gate.

Nyanya General Hospital was established to cater to the medical needs of the residents within the Nyanya district so they can have access to prompt medical interventions at low costs without travelling far.

As is the procedure in the hospital, patients at the reception wait patiently on the queue taking turns to have their vital signs by the nurse on duty.

With only two doctors on duty and over 60 persons waiting, patients struggle to get seats closest to the consulting rooms.

Chioma Melkam who accompanied her mother, Scholastica Melkam, to the hospital wonders why she prefers Nyanya General Hospital to others in the city.

“After my experience, you still insist on coming to this hospital to waste time?” she asked after waiting for hours.

Two months ago, Chioma had been down with malaria after having fainting episodes, she managed to come all by herself to the emergency ward of the hospital the next morning but the nurses asked her to leave the ward because her illness was not an emergency issue.

She then left the emergency ward to the General Outpatient Department where she was advised by one of the nurses to cry loudly to get attention from the doctors.

“One of the ladies at the GOPD advised that I should cry to get attention. ‘That should let them know that you need urgent attention,” Chioma recalled.

After waiting for three hours a doctor finally attended to her. But despite the poor services Chioma received at the hospital, she and her mother were back a few months later in the queue waiting to be seen by a doctor at the same hospital.

Scholastica paid the required N200 for her medical file to be retrieved from the archives while she waited patiently for her turn to see the doctor. To create a personal medical file at the hospital, the sum of N700 is stipulated as the fee, but N200 is often required before a patient’s file can be retrieved from the archives.

But this extra payment did not hasten access to the doctor. In fact, the mother and daughter waited for nearly five hours before they eventually saw one.

Patients’ waiting time at the hospital is defined as “the length of time from when the patient entered the outpatient clinic to the time the patient actually leaves the General Outpatient Department not excluding the time used for registration but including the duration of time it takes to run a laboratory or diagnostic test and receiving the result of the various tests.”

Long queue at Maitama District Hospital

The ICIR‘s next port of call was Maitama District Hospital. At 11.am, there was a long queue of patients waiting to have their vital sign checks at the GOPD. The number of people waiting was a hundred and forty or thereabouts, and the queue continued to get longer as many more patients joined the line.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/patients-are-frustrated-in-abuja-hospitals-due-to-long-wait-but-there-is-no-way-out-yet/