Re: UITH of deaths, sorrows, tears

We refer to your report of Thursday, 9th to Sunday 12th July, 2015 and we react with varying degrees of shock, dismay and disbelief as one would have thought that with the age of journalism in the country as well as the caliber and versatility exhibited by notable Nigerian journalists in formulating policies and giving directions to successive government, the era of unethical journalism was over in the country, that is, until we read your disparaging piece on the UITH.

The UITH, which is a second generation tertiary health institution established some 30 years ago has been rendering meritorious services to Nigerians in the areas of quality health care needs and services and was rated by the Olusegun Obasanjo regime as one of the Five Star Teaching Hospitals in the Country, a status which the Hospital had since retained.

In fact, the hospital has in recent times achieved great feats in the areas of Kidney Transplant, deliveries of countless number of babies through Invitro Fertilization (IVF) and will also, in few days, carry out the first Open Heart Surgery within the institution.

Under our able CMD, the UITH runs an almost 24 hours electricity supply in spite of the diesel challenges to all its needed facilities with well-structured backups in place in case of power failure. Besides, as a hospital of great repute, sanitation exercises are taken very seriously. There are staff employed for that purpose, but unit heads are equally mandated to supervise their environment on daily basis to ensure high level of hygienic situations. We are not just caring for the patients; we equally spend quality time with them and thus will not risk the inherent danger in making the environment unhygienic.

The UITH, under present the administration has ensured that the Hospital has a functioning SERVICOM section, with an effective and efficient NODAL Officer for the reference of any erring staff in case of negligence of duties. We make bold to say that the staff of the institution are hardworking and dedicated.

For instance as we speak, many other teaching hospitals across the country are presently on strike, while UITH is still rendering impeccable services to patients within and outside its catchment zone.

Tertiary hospitals by their hierarchy in the nation's health sector do not make referrals irrespective of how bad the case of the patient may be. Therefore, the allegation of the referral from a tertiary hospital to a secondary one is very ridiculous. We have a large pool of professionals in the hospital to draw from when another goes on leave to rest and recuperate.

In the world all over, everybody knows health workers only care but the power to cure/heal rests on God.

Most of the cases brought to Hospitals are beyond redemption as many of them are usually sent to us at very bad stages. We save some and we lose some. We understand that the grieving relatives would lament blaming the Hospital but as I said earlier, we can only try our best and will continue to do so. The services rendered by the UITH have become sources of encouragement to some privileged Nigerians who have recently donated expensive facilities like the Trauma Centre to the hospital.

UITH is far from perfect but it also is not bad. The institution is striving hard to deliver the best healthcare service possible even in the midst of several conflicting governmental policies and harsh economic conditions. We have done so much with so little especially since the current administration that the staff and institution should be commended and not condemned.

We respectably submit that UITH had been unfairly tried, judged and convicted without fully exhausting all channels of communication. This is very unethical and against the tenets of your profession. It is important that information is sourced for and doubly verified to avoid unnecessarily aggravating the public.

The Hospital Information Unit is open for Information and clarification on any other issue which you may want clarification on. Kindly avail yourself of this privilege in future before misinforming the public with spurious and unfounded allegations.

We will appreciate the timely publication of this rejoinder in order to set the records straight.

O. O. Omojasola (Mrs)

Head, Corporate Affairs.

Our position

Comment is free, but facts are scared - C.P Scot

Professionally, as much as we encourage rejoinder as a way of setting records straight, we found riposte sent to us by the management of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Ilorin, with respect to our Special Report headlined “UITH of deaths, sorrow, tears,” utterly irresponsible.

It is instructive to state that the story was published in public trust and devoid of any ill-feeling, mischief or malice. Unequivocally, we stand firmly for, like motto says: “Quest for Truth and Justice.” Our report was simply a wake-up call, but unfortunately, UITH has considered it “misinforming.”

A careful perusal of the 13 paragraphs rejoinder revealed its emptiness and showed the UITH Management's playing to the gallery rather than address the exposed systemic rot, staffers' negligence and facilities failures, which over the years have been sending unsuspecting patients to their early grave.

Is there no systemic rot? Are staffers of the UITH up and doing with regards to their professional callings as life-safer? Was there no death(s) occasioned by negligence of the supposed health workers? Will the management make bold to say there are no challenges in terms of required or decayed infrastructural facilities? Is it not true that three babies died at the UITH as reported, leaving their parents in perpetual sorrow and tears? These are germane issues which UITH has failed to address in the so-called rejoinder. Rather the health institution resorted to abuse and name-calling.

Going through our report, one would see how victims narrated their ordeals of deaths, sorrow and tears. Among victims was a prominent member of the Kwara State House of Assembly, who lost her grandchild to what she called nonchalant attitudes of your health workers. How would UITH explain a situation where medical equipment was left in a patient's abdomen after surgery had been performed? Those who spoke to National Pilot in the report represented very few out of thousands who had suffered and are still suffering from the health institution's systemic rot.

Again, our report was not targeted at destroying the good image of the health institution and we make bold to say some of the successes recorded over the years, especially, the first Kidney Transplant, was commendable. With all sense of modesty, National Pilot was the first newspaper in the world that broke the news story though our reporter, who did the story out of her professional ingenuity, was subjected, severally, to threat and restrictions by UITH's Corporate Affairs Unit on the pretext that the story should not be broken by a “local medium.”

However, the UITH's position that it runs 'almost 24 hours' electricity supply is far from the truth as deaths of some babies reported were attributed to power failure. One of the babies was said to have died in the incubator when the generating set packed off over lack of fuel.

Contrary to UITH's perceived “unethical, spurious and unfounded allegations,” we say with all sense of responsibility that our story was thorough, factual, fair and balanced. Having carried out our investigation and spoken to those who shared their bitter experiences, we made several efforts at getting the position of the health institution through the Head of Corporate Affairs. Our efforts at getting the position of the UITH were deliberately frustrated by what we considered as professional incompetence and laxity on the part of the institution's spokesperson (Head of Corporate Affairs). This was clearly stated in our report. The visit of Mr Oba Hassan Kadir to National Pilot's Corporate Headquarters to intercede on behalf of the UITH raised the question of competence on the part of the occupant of the Corporate Affairs' office. Kadir was UITH's Head of Corporate Affairs, until his recent re-deployment.

As a matter of fact, we recall that both the UITH's Administrative Officer and the Head of Corporate Affairs had admitted some of the challenges as exposed in our report in their earlier discussion with us, only for the institution to come up with outrageous and pointless rejoinder.

Since the publication of the special report, we have been receiving deluge of commendations from members of the public and additional damning revelations, prompting our preparation for another report on UITH's rot, which should be expected in our subsequent editions.

We would have expected that the supposed Five Star Hospital take cursory look at the lapses raised and addressed it with a view to improving sound health care delivery, which is the hallmark of any health institution. It is indeed regrettable. We are convinced that the UITH's management was ill-advised to come up with this spurious rejoinder.

Hence, we call on the Kwara State House of Assembly and other relevant stakeholders to rise to the occasion by ensuring UITH address these damning issues to guarantee safety of lives at the hospital.

However, we stand by our story. We remain undeterred and we shall continue to carry out our professional duties by exposing what we considered damaging to the health of members of the public without fear or favour. We are committed to fair, balance and objective reporting. We are jealous of our professional integrity and we remain fearless even in the face of intimidation and blackmail.

#editorial