Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ear infection and a trip to London?

I agree, Prof., I truly agree. The issue of a president going abroad to treat himself for anything, let alone ear infection, problematizes our appalling healthcare condition! And, believe me, that problem is real, and it is so sad. Permit me to share an experience I had two months ago in Nigeria when a close member of my brother's church was sick and admitted to UCH. If anyone would recall, UCH was the premier teaching hospital in West Africa, if not in all of Africa. I joined my folks to visit the gentleman admitted to the UCH; what I saw shocked me, and my heart bled for my people.

Granted that I have natural irritations for uncleanliness; granted that I have lived in America for so long where healthcare standards are exponentially different from what entails at the home front; granted that my last visit to UCH was in the late 1970s, when UCH was nothing less than the best among its peers around the world; yet, this time, I was flabbergasted at what I witnessed. I almost cried for my beloved country and for my people. First, the hospital hall (called "the ward") where the patients were kept, was extraordinarily filthy - unkempt and prone to the spread of communicable diseases. Honestly, this has nothing to do with poverty, it was purely an environment uncared for.  It's understandable that the window blinds could be old due to finances, but why should it not be washed and be made to look clean? The floors may be old, but should it not be mopped and made free of dust? The hall was packed full of people, with beds almost touching each other and nothing to demarcate one patient from the other; yet they were all admitted inside the same ward for different types and levels of diseases. The only thing that the patients had in common was that they were all men.

I could not sit down because of the physically unclean conditions in the hospital room. Honestly, I found it extremely offensive that human beings could be left in such filthy condition. I told my folks that in most parts of the world, if a homeless shelter were to remotely look like what I saw that day, there would be serious litigations against the government or individuals that funded it, and against the personnel that managed it. I restrained myself from throwing up - no exaggeration. The worst part of it was that as we were walking out, I saw a sink with a tap and wanted to wash my hands, a routine practice at any healthcare facility where there are no hand cleansers, the nurse on duty was enraged and shouted that we could not use the sink or touch the bowl of water there. I asked what to do; she said she did not care but that we needed to just leave. The nurse did not give me any chance to tell her my mind as she walked away, shouting at a nearby patient.

I have stated my story here just to underscore one reason: the need for overhauling our healthcare system is real. It is a shame that every politician and other Nigerians that have some clout (especially financially) would travel overseas to have routine checkups or treat headaches, ear infections and things that should be taken care of at home if the facilities were in basic conditions. Yet, the masses, which could not afford such luxury, would die like chickens - unceremoniously and in record numbers. Our leaders need to be held accountable. If a high class university teaching hospital like UCH could fall victim of evil days the way it has, our leaders should answer to the people - no longer to God (that doesn't seem to bother them at all). They should be ashamed for running out of the country for treatments when they leave their own nation and people high and dry, ignoring the best of their nation's healthcare centers, and leaving it so it would die such painful death while it hangs on an unbelievably terrible life support, the way UCH currently is. Posterity has to judge. The people have to act!

Michael O. Afolayan

From the Land of Lincoln

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On Sunday, June 5, 2016 4:25 PM, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

I don't want to talk about a sick president when he needs our prayer but about the health system of a country as big as Nigeria that cannot handle this, even if it involves surgery.

First, it is laughable that enormous expenses have to be devoted to an ear infection.

Second, it shows the level of developmental degeneracy.

Third, it shows the degree to which ordinary citizens are short-changed.

Unless of course there is more to it than an ear infection, this is an embarrassment.
TF
Sent from my iPhone

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