NIGERIAN PUBLIC HOSPITALS ARE THE ABSOLUTE GHETTO

I was sick. Wrapped up like a larva in a cocoon, too tired to argue with my own body. 

Kemi suggested I go to the general hospital nearby. I refused, but she assured me the service was top-notch, that she had been treated there when she was sick, and that she had zero regrets. Somehow, I believed her, and oh boy. Huge mistake. I should’ve just gone to that private hospital I had in mind.

The laundry guy at the house escorted me to the hospital. He’s got some connections there. Because of him, I was able to jump the queue to be attended to. I thought that meant I’d be safe. I was wrong.

I was sat on a wiggling chair. In the emergency room. The smell hit me first; the disinfectant trying but failing to cover something underneath. I sat there in pain, waiting and watching. Beds with patients on them were scattered everywhere. From the entrance to the general emergency ward. Chaos.

I finally saw a doctor. He asked a few questions, then told a nurse to take me to a cubicle. From the looks of it, it was the injection and wound dressing room. The place was filthy. Both dried and fresh blood and bodily fluids were almost everywhere. And the stench? Oh my God.

While I waited, a patient was brought into the same cubicle. Apparently it was supposed to be a private area. But anyone could walk in and out. She was naked. Next thing, her legs were spread wide, and a speculum was put in her vagina. From what the doctor said, it looked like she had retained placenta from her recent childbirth. They were trying to take it out. There was blood everywhere. Men and women walked in and out of the cubicle and saw the whole horror.  

She cried, and the doctor threatened to leave her if she continued. 

No privacy. No dignity. No empathy.  

When they were done, they didn’t clean the bed for whoever was going to be the next patient. I wanted to lie down there, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure of her medical history. I was in serious pain on that wriggling chair. I just wanted to lie down, but no place was provided to do so. 

While I was trying to hold my tears because of the pain, a doctor saw me. Despite the chaos in the A&E, he found a minute to empathise with me. He promised me I’d be alright eventually. That one minute kept me going.

Then a cleaner saw me in tears. He pitied me and took me to their call room. There was a metallic bed there. Directly opposite their toilets. But hey, I couldn’t complain. His kindness warmed my heart. But it hit me. This wasn’t “top notch.” This was survival. For the staff, and for me.  

I was too weak to complain; complaining wouldn’t solve anything. I was also too sick to leave, and I had already started receiving treatments.

They couldn’t admit me overnight. They were managing bed space for more pressing cases. So they found a way to treat me as an outpatient since I wasn’t living too far from the hospital.

While waiting for my first IV to be administered, a lab tech came. He said he was there to draw my blood for testing. The doctor already knew what was wrong with me. I guess the lab tech was taking my blood for posterity’s sake. He looked like a new graduate. Or maybe a student. He was clueless about how to draw my blood right. My veins in my right hand thrombosed because of his multiple errors.

A doctor saw his struggle and decided to teach him, using me as the lab rat. She directed him orally. But he still missed. The little blood that got out, she emptied it on the wall close to me. Mind you, she wasn’t wearing a glove. She must’ve had so much trust in me not having incurable, stubborn communicable diseases like hepatitis B. She barely even said a word to me. I felt like a cadaver being used for practice. She eventually drew my blood at one go. I tried so hard to conceal my trypanophobia. Hid my tears and racing heart out of fear of her being mean to me like she was to the previous patient she attended to.

Typically, when you visit a hospital as a patient, your vitals are taken first. Blood pressure. Temperature. Weight. Height. But none of that was done.

Anyway, I was given a container for my urine sample. The toilet was… I don’t want to deepdive into the horrors of that place.

I doubt if my samples even got tested. Maybe they were, but they didn’t deem it necessary to tell me the results. The only reason I knew malaria was part of what was wrong with me was because of the IV meds they administered.

When I was finally done with my first round of medication, they told me to go home and come back between 5 and 6 am the following day for my next round. While scrambling my way out of A&E, struggling with beds and patients blocking the walkway, I found a dead body. Just placed outside. On a bed by the side of the entrance.  I heard he most likely had a heart attack while working.

I wouldn’t want the corpse of anyone I care about to be placed that way, without dignity. But it is what it is.

I couldn’t even get mad at the rude doctor. She was most likely doing us a favour by being there in the first place, considering how grossly understaffed and utterly underpaid they are, with little or no medical supplies. The atmosphere of the ward is enough to make anyone cranky.

But kudos to the other nice doctors! Despite all of the horrors they see daily, they still had some kindness and empathy in their hearts. They didn’t transfer any aggression to the patients.

Just in the moments I was there, I saw cases of an unsuccessful suicide attempt, compound fracture, snake bites, and so many more. It must be physically and mentally exhausting dealing with such cases every day while being poorly equipped with medical supplies as basic as hand gloves.

At this general hospital in Abuja, the laundry guy who escorted me did all the running around. Registering me. Submitting my blood and other samples. Making payments. If it wasn’t for him, I would’ve been the one doing the running around despite my condition. Just last year, when I was sick, I was taken to a top private hospital in the city.  It had automated doors, disability supports, a squeaky clean environment, and friendly and helpful healthcare workers. I could go there alone without anyone. And the electronic medical record (EMR) is there to document everything. Support staff are there to wheel me around.

Two hospitals. Two different worlds.

Poverty and bad governance are so unfair.  I got lucky that I survived the whole ordeal. Others might be quick to blame the staff at the public hospital. But I don’t think it’s their fault. And I commend them for their resilience to still work in that type of tough and putrefying hospital. If only they got proper funding. If only they adopted an EMR system. As a biomedical engineer, I would’ve proposed this, but I’m sure a lot of HealthTechs would’ve done that, and corruption got in the way of bringing it to reality.

I went in hoping to get better. I left traumatised, and just wanting to get out. Maybe Kemi had a different experience. Or maybe I just wasn’t supposed to be a patient there.

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*A pseudonym is used to protect the author’s identity.