Nyanya bomb blasts: Agencies lament inadequate facilities in FCT hospitals

BY FAVOUR NNABUGWU
Rescue agencies, yesterday, lamented the lack of facilities at hospitals in the Federal capital Territory, FCT, to cater for victims of last Monday’s Nyanya Motor Park bomb blast.

Operatives of  National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, FCT, Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, the Police, the Army, Department of  State Service, DSS, Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, and other stakeholders, also expressed disgust over the poor attitude of hospital staff to victims and other patients as well as poor administration and inadequate mortuary facilities.

FEMA Director-General, Alhaji Idriss Abbas, who commended the media for a job well done in the reportage of the explosion in Abuja, said the hospitals gave the agencies and other stakeholders tough time, demanding for payment and hospital cards for the victims, both dead and injured.

He lamented:  “We converged ourselves and visited about nine hospitals, took stock of all the victims, including those who are dead and the injured, from general hospitals at Nyanya, Maitama, Asokoro to the other six primary health care facilities that the victims were taken to.

“We observed that among all the problems associated with the hospitals, inadequate facilities were pronounced.  The hospitals denying patients medical attention until payment are made and card obtained is a major impediment to implementation of service improvement plans that would lead to quality healthcare services.”

Speaking on the evaluation of services at the nine hospitals, Abbas said the structure did not allow immediate medical attention to victims without going through the rigours of payment and signing of documents before attending to patients.

The FEMA DG noted that some of those lapses in the hospitals needed to be addressed to get to the standard expected of them.
Although, the Asokoro General Hospital was rated two-star in its services, making it the best hospital among the 11 owned by the FCTA,

He said the Nyanya explosion gave the hospitals as lacking a customer care policy that could adequately take care of the needs of victims.
“The situation is that there are no adequate facilities, which was why we had to look for alternative places to relocate the corpses in the hospitals.