Facts emanating from Delta state university teaching hospital Oghara in Ethiope west local government area of Delta state have not spoken well of the tertiary health institution.
According to Comrade Kehinde Taiga, president of Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR), the institution is now a shadow of itself following the non-availability of adequate funds for smooth medical services.
Taiga told Emerald News on phone that the present DELSUTH is more expensive than the private hospitals in Delta state. According to him, the teaching hospital has been technically privatised since it depends on internally generated revenue for the day to running of the hospital.
He told this medium that the state government has stopped releasing subvention to the hospital with an advice for the management to run the institution with internally generated revenue.
He alleged that the state government has only given subvention to the management twice since the inception of the Okowa administration in 2015.
He also alleged that following the directive of the state government, patients pay through their nose for every medical service rendered at the hospital.
A senior staff of the tertiary institution also told this medium in confidence that the cost of health care at Oghara teaching hospital is now far above the reach of the ordinary Deltan.
He said Lagos University Teaching Hospital receives N100million a month, Anambra Teaching Hospital gets N60m a month as subvention from the state governments but DELSUTH staff only receives salaries and carries out administrative and other medical services on IGR.
He said based on the non-funding of the institution, doctors and radiographers are leaving the institution in droves.
According to him: “We are making use of what we have. There are no equipment at the hospital. We dont have enough hands to work. No subvention is given to us.
“Patients are charged for every service rendered. Many doctors are moving out. Government is not making things easy for us.
“Before Uduaghan left government he was paying N100m as subvention monthly, it was later reduced to N60m and N40m. But when Okowa came he paid about twice and stopped.
“Dialysis was initially free but now patients pay for dialysis. Each dialysis is N40,000 and a patient needs at least two sessions a week. As it is now, the hospital is not functional as it used to be. Government needs to make the hospital work.”
In attempt to verify the claims of these individuals from the state health commissioner, Dr. Mordi Ononye, Emerald News called the commissioner’s phone line, unfortunately the call was not picked neither was there a return call.
A further step to get details from Dr. Mordi was made by sending text message to his phone line but for five days the text message was not replied.
Below is a copy of the text message sent to the commissioner on Friday April 1, 2022 around 4.16pm.
