A MEMBER of Anambra State of House Assembly, Timothy Ifedioramma, has cried out that snakes now attack doctors and nurses on duty at the Enugwu Ukwu General hospital, Njikoka Local Government Area of the state.
Ifedioramma who represents the area at the House of Assembly disclosed this during plenary session on Thursday on the floor of the House.
The State Commissioner of Health, Joe Akabuike, had promised that the state government would upgrade the hospital.
But the lawmaker, who said he had met the Commissioner a number of time over the poor state of the hospital, rejected such promise as empty.
“We can’t wait until it is upgraded. Nothing works there now,” Ifedioramma lamented, adding, “No laboratory, and the mortuary got burnt in December last year; all of that is as a result of negligence and abandonment by government.”
He said women in the local government do not have where to be delivered of their babies, and available private hospitals are charging exorbitant fees.
“I want to get some of them into a health insurance scheme but at the same time, how can somebody who is sick in the village go to Awka or Onitsha to access medical care, when we have a very big structure like Enugwu-Ukwu General Hospital,” he said.
The lawmaker said there was a need to draw attention to the state of the hospital, so as to get it running.
This incident came barely six months after a mysterious fire razed down the hospital’s morgue resulting in over 50 corpses burnt in the process.
It would be recalled that the Association of Resident Doctors of Chukwuemeka Odumegu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital (COOUTH) had on May 13, 2019, commenced an indefinite strike after the state government failed to meet their demands.
The doctors want the government to address the dearth of medical equipment in the state’s teaching hospital.
President of the association, Obinna Anigbaoso had in an interview told The ICIR that the state government wanted to meet with the leadership of the association to find a lasting solution to the crisis.
Talks between government and representatives of the association broke down as the association described the resolution as unfavourable.