Pecohub Some healthcare practitioners have blamed the ineffectiveness of Primary Healthcare Centres for patients’ crowding of the secondary and tertiary health institutions to seek healthcare services.
The experts asserted in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Lagos.
According to them, the situation is the major cause of persistent lack of bed spaces in secondary/tertiary health facilities across the country.
Speaking, Livinus Abonyi, Dean, Faculty of HealthCare Services of the Federal University of Allied Health Sciences, Enugu, underscored the need to strengthened the PHCs in the country for optimal performance.
Abonyi, also an Associate Professor of Medical Radiography/Medical Imaging, lamented that the PHCs were poorly funded particularly in terms of manpower and facilities/equipment.
He said that PHCs need not only to be equipped with adequate manpower and resources, but also to be empowered to function 24 hours a day to accommodate health emergencies that usually occur at night.
Abonyi, who decried the large population of patients that seek healthcare at secondary and tertiary health facilities, said that the situation has resulted in a persistent lack of bed spaces in the health institutions.
According to him, if the PHCs are functioning optimally, a greater percentage of health cases would be handled at that level such that only about 30 per cent of the health cases would be referred to the tertiary health facilities.
“Presently, a patient can visit about two to three tertiary hospitals without getting a bed space – that is real.
“If anyone wants to test it, the person should just pretend to be very sick; you will go to the first one – they will say no bed space; you go to the second one – the same no bed space.
“There are many citizens who are carried back home dead because they are unable to get a bed space.
“If we have functional primary healthcare facilities and associated levels of care, we wouldn’t be facing such, because earlier intervention prevents disease progression to a certain level where it will require further treatments.
“But, if at the early stage it was addressed and tackled conveniently, the person would have gotten well and it wouldn’t add to the population that would bring pressure to the tertiary health facilities,” Abonyi said.
A Teacher, Donatus George, lamented how his wife passed out in the process of being transferred from one public hospital to another due to a lack of bed space and a limited number of health personnel on ground.
