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PEOPLES DAILY, MONDAY, JULY 16, 2012
Primus hospital saga: Between safety of life and politics of mudslinging (I) For quite sometime now, Primus International Super Specialty Hospital, Karu, which is being managed by Indian doctors, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. It has been one negative report or the other against the hospital leased by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA). The one question that may have crossed the minds of readers is. Whether the allegations against these doctors, who are labelled as quacks, are true? To ascertain this, an indept investigation therefore, becomes necessary. Our correspondent, Josephine Ella was part of a team which toured the hospital at the weekend. The tour revealed that there may be more to these reports than meets the eye as testimonies of a cross-section of Nigerians receiving medical attention in the hospital, including eminent personalities disproved some of the scathing allegations against the hospital. In addition, it further lends credence to what management of the hospital has alleged to be a plot by some Nigerian doctors to boot them out of the market for their selfish interests.
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ontrary to allegations making the rounds in the media, especially the social media that the Indian doctors operating in the hospital are incompetent, patients on admission think otherwise. For a cross section of these patients, "the doctors are wonderful, caring and very excellent in their operations". Many of them, who spoke to journalists during the tour, see the establishment of the hospital as a blessing rather than a harbinger of death as recent reports suggested. The son of the late Nigerian Military Head of State, General Sani Abacha was one of the patients on admission in the hospital during the visit. Abbah Abacha told journalists that he was involved in a road crash recently which resulted to a neck injury. Abacha, who had been admitted in a clinic initially before he was later transferred to Primus hospital, has this to say about the hospital. "To me, the management seems to be quite up to the task and I have seen how efficient they are taking care of patients. They do it very diligently," he said, confirming that he was fast recovering". To the father of another patient on admission at the Intensive care unit. Raynea Ifada, a final year student of Federal Government College Kwali, who underwent a brain and spinal cord surgery, the hospital is the saviour of his son, whom he said nearly died at the National Hospital in Abuja due to sheer negligence on the part of the hospital. Mathew Ifada, told how Raynea was involved in an accident while returning home from school and was rescued by a Good Samaritan, who took him to the National Hospital before he was contacted. According to him, the National Hospital ought to have carried out an urgent operation on the boy within 24 hours but in their usual unpleasant character, the surgery was delayed.
Raynea Ifada with his father in the intensive care unit of Primus Specialty Hospital, Karu, Abuja "Quite alright my son, who was unconscious, was given first aid treatment and he regained consciousness but after that, he was just there and no treatment further and body was talking to me. “I asked questions, indeed at a point in time, we even entered into fracas that I said that if anything happened to my son, I will take life into my hands. He was removed from emergency unit to main surgical ward, and he was there alone, no oxygen or anything, in fact that was when his condition was deteriorating. “When I saw that his condition was deteriorating and that he was almost at the verge of death, I had to look elsewhere, that was how I found my way here," he narrated. Continuing, he said: "But one thing is that any spinal
cord accident operation was not supposed to past 24 hours before operation, but there, they just abandoned my son until after one week that I brought him to this hospital and the operation was done on him. “The treatment here was wonderful; I wish I can show you the pictures of him that I took from National Hospital. The moment we entered the gate, that was when they rushed him to the theatre and since then, his health has been improving on daily basis. We came here 28 of June and he was actually admitted here on the 29th, while on the 30th, the operation was carried out." A woman in her fifties, Mrs Rukayya Mustapha, who had a knee cap replacement and ovarian cyst surgery said she was fascinated by the love and care showered on her daily by
the doctors, nurses and other staff. She confirmed that her operations were very successful and she is convalescing progressively. Asked why she chose to come to the hospital rather than going to India, she said: "I have seen many people that have been operated successfully in this hospital, so I felt there was no need going to India because India is now here in Nigeria and it will cause more money". A Rtd Capt, Bulus Yahaya, also on admission in the hospital on referral, said the Gombe state government was footing the bills of two of them in the hospital who underwent knee cap replacement and arthritis. "They have been very good. In fact, every service here is excellent," he testified when asked about his rating of the hospital services.
Similarly, an ex- patient of the hospital, Air Vice Marshal (Rtd) Aliyu El-rufai, who had received treatment for diabetes in the hospital testified that he received all the care and attention that was needed when on admission. El-rufai maintained that "No government hospital will be able provide specialised services like primus hospital. They have been able to do a lot". He shares the same opinion with the hospital management that the bad press the hospital has suffered was as a result of the fact that other indigenous hospitals could not withstand the competition. "From what I saw, the bad press could have come from those doctors who cannot cope with the competition," he said, advising Nigerians with complicated cases to visit the hospital instead of flying to India. The testimonies above are only a few reactions, out of many others from patients, who were unanimous in their opinion about the hospital. The biggest controversy the hospital has been enmeshed in since it started its operation in 2010, was an allegation by a woman, who visited the hospital sometimes in November last year for Fibroid operation. Reports had it that the woman in question alleged that she was opened up and stitched back without the fibroid being removed. She further alleged that when she recovered from the effect of the Anastasia, she requested to see the lump but was told it had been taken to the lab for analysis. As a result of the excruciating pain she kept experiencing, in December 2011, she was said to have decided to go to another lab for a scan and the results of the scan showed that the fibroid hadn't been removed though there was evidence that she had been opened up for surgery. It was upon this revelation that she resorted to litigation against the hospital to seek redress.