About 100 communities covering 4,000 people seek medical help at Yadakunya General Hospital in Kano State, a facility that has been in existence for 106 years and is manned by one medical doctor.
Also known as Bela hospital in Ungogo Local Government of the state, the facility lacks many things, according to Aminiya, a Hausa paper published by Daily Trust.
Besides, there is no emergency department in case of an accident, no clean toilets for patients and nurses to move around, and no water and electricity, Aminiya reports.
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Phone communication is also difficult or restricted once you enter the hospital, this becomes a big challenge for emergency calls from inside or outside the hospital.
Bela hospital was previously famous for treating leprosy and other skin diseases, but now the Kano State Government has turned it into a general hospital. With the exception of one toilet said to have been built by the Chairman of the Ungogo Local Government, Alhaji Garba Ramat recently, others are in shambles.
Alhaji Murtala Bashir, the district head of Yadakunya, noted that the hospital is facing a lot of problems. “I know you can see by yourself,” he told Aminiya.
The district head added that the hospital also receives patients from other countries such as Niger, Ghana and Chad, “and there is no state in Northern Nigeria where patients are not coming to this hospital.”
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He called on the Kano State Government and other stakeholders to put more effort to ease the suffering of the patients and provide them with an emergency department in the hospital.
A senior official in the hospital management who pleaded anonymity corroborated the paper’s findings, saying the facility is left to suffer.
According to him, there is only one doctor in the hospital, 17 nurses in the hospital and five lab workers. “If you look at the number of people who come to the hospital, you will see that the work is too much for them, and in addition, we do not have an emergency department.
Alhaji Ibrahim Mu’azzam, the spokesperson of the Kano State Hospital Management Board, said the board has already set up a committee to visit the hospital to investigate the problems it is facing and find ways to solve them.
