By Abasifreke Effiong & Kufre Etuk
The Akwa Ibom State government is setting up emergency referral hospitals in the State. The pioneer centre is hosted in the renovated General Hospital, Etinan, a secondary healthcare facility.
This effort is one of the recovery responses made by the State government in reaction to the huge challenges it faced attending to well over 310 emergency cases when hundreds of worshippers were trapped in the collapsed Reigners Bible Church auditorium.
Casualties from the incident stood at 310.Twenty-eight (28) people died, according to official figure from the State Ministry of Health. During the mishap, emergency response was not compact because available personnel were overwhelmed by the number of casualties, and facilities over-stretched. None of the State government owned secondary healthcare facilities had needed equipment to attend to victims of that gloomy December 10, disaster. The government was at the mercy of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, UUTH, a federal government owned tertiary healthcare facility.
The absence of a State-owned coordinating emergency centre delayed help for victims of that incident. One of the victims had said she was taken to three hospitals before finally taken to Ibom Specialist Hospital where she was treated. The State government incurred neck-breaking bills treating those casualties at Ibom Specialist Hospital.
The emergency response centre is a “good idea”, Disaster Management Coordinator of the Nigerian Red Cross, Akwa Ibom State branch, Ubong Jonah says.
The State government’s emergency response centre will relieve over reliance on UUTH and improve quality of facilities and services in State-owned hospitals, Governor Udom Emmanuel said at a press conference to mark his second year as governor. Five hospitals are earmarked for the facility upgrade.
“We will have facilities that will be far more sophisticated and modern than what we have in UUTH. We want to have what we can call our own. We can’t continue to depend on UUTH, where we don’t have control”, Governor Udom said.
A fortnight ago, Akwa Ibom State government took delivery of 16 container load of medical hardwares imported to set up the emergency centres. The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Dominic Ukpong said 100 container load of equipment are expected.
The Etinan emergency response centre is designed with a main theatre that can accommodate three surgical operations simultaneously. The centre has a minor theatre, maternity ward and theatre, antenatal clinic, family planning unit, children ward, recovery rooms, nursery for pre-mature babies, treatment rooms for patients with wounds and two pharmacies.
Taking journalists on a tour of the facility and inspection of the equipment, Dr. Dominic Ukpong said the facility will have a-24 hour ambulance services and paramedics.
Medical hardwares already delivered to the centre include; automated beds with ultrasound scanners, electro- cardiogram machines, spot vital signs devices, fetal anomaly scanners, endoscopes, hoyer lifts, oxygen concentrators, etc.
The beauty of the supplies delivered to the centre is that they are brand new, modern equipment. The automated beds with ultrasound scanners for instance is the most modern bed technology used in hospitals in advanced nations. The beds are self adjustable, so instead of the crude practice where doctors struggle to turn patients including those in critical conditions to a required posture at a given time, a click on a nob on the automated bed does that effortlessly, and without stress on the patients.
One equipment wowed some persons who were on the inspection- it was the fetal anomaly scan.
A vast majority of babies are born normal. However all women, whatever their age, have a small chance of delivering a baby with a physical or a mental problem. Many such abnormalities can be diagnosed and ruled out with the fetal anomaly scan. A scan with this machine can detect 50 to 70% of Down Syndrome, birth defect such as a spina bifida, and can show whether the foetus is growing normal.
Yet another fascinating equipment is the Electro-Cardiogram ECG. The machine is used for heart diagnosis. It measures the electrical activity of a patient’s heart through harmless electrodes; typically used on patients who suffer heart damage, heart injuries, or experience symptoms that maybe caused by any number of heart-related problems.
The endoscopic machine is yet another. It is used for screening of internal organs such as the stomach, anus, large intestines, to pick out small fibroids.
More so, as part of State government’s emergency and disaster response and management plan, office of the deputy governor which oversees the State Emergency Management Agency, recently organised the first of its kind intensive training on disaster management for workers in the State. Trainees were drawn from different sectors. Tutors at the three days event were drawn from the NMA, Nigerian Red Cross and Security agencies. Some of the topics treated during the training include, “Management of Victims at Incident Sites”, by Ubong Jonah, Disaster Management Coordinator, Nigeria Red Cross, Akwa Ibom State; “General Safety Awareness”, by Engr. Uwemedimo Umoumoh, Principal Consultant, Pro-Lines Int’l Consultants.
Beyond these ones, Dr. Dominic Ukpong, Commisioner for Health, says government is planning to train 100 personnel – 75 nurses and 25 doctors on emergency response. Personnel such as neuro-surgeons and physiotherapists are scarce in the State.
Ukpong said the Etinan emergency centre will serve as a training facility for personnel and medical students. “The facility will accommodate up to 200 students on housemanship”.
All these are laudable actions and plans, but there is a concern that siting the pioneer emergency centre at Etinan would make real-time response to emergency in the city difficult, not withstanding good roads.
Ubong Jonah, Coordinator of Disaster Management for the Red Cross in the State says, “If real-time response is not feasible, the essence of rescue is defeated. The first emergency centre should be in Uyo. It should be the first and coordinating centre”.
Emergency response is important within 15 minutes of an occurrence. Uyo, the State capital has become a cosmopolitan city and predisposed to widespread emergencies.
“When the point occurrence and point of assistance is far, it’s a problem”, Jonah added.
However, the Commissioner for Health says government’s vision is to make emergency response possible within 15- minutes driving distance across the State. There is a plan to procure ambulances, train paramedics that will work in those ambulances. There is also a plan to secure a toll-free three digit emergency number that people could call in cases of emergencies. These are the new wonders the Udom Emmanuel administration has initiated in the Akwa Ibom State Health sector.
Now that this plan is becoming a reality, rejigging SEMA is important to bring together stakeholders and agencies whose roles are inevitable in emergency response and disaster management.
