Muhammed Lawal and Dennis Naku
Patients seeking medical services at University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Rivers State, have accused the hospital of forcing them to purchase food.
They also expressed concerns about power outages, the reported poor condition of the hospital’s toilets and bad water.
But the hospital dismissed the claims, describing it as untrue.
According to some of the patients, they were forced to pay for food and had to endure the unbearable smell in their wards, which emanated from the toilets.
In a viral post, an X user, Baridueh Badon (@BadonB), criticise the hospital service.
He described his mother’s six-month stay at the hospital as one of the worst healthcare experiences he ever had.
Narrating the ordeal, he stressed, “The first shock was compulsory feeding. Every patient was forced to eat hospital food. You can’t opt out of it. This food is worse than what people in prison eat. The cost was N2,000 per day. I could not understand why a hospital would force patients to eat their food.”
Also speaking about her experience, a patient at the hospital, Maureen Ikeaguchi, commended the UPHTH on its medical services, even as she said some of its financial bills were needless.
“I was treated well, even when I was in emergency. There was a swift response from them to take care of me. They didn’t even ask us for money for surgery. They had to take care of me first,” she noted.
However, Ikeaguchi said she was handed a food bill of N7,000 that she knew nothing about.
He said, “On the day we were about to leave the hospital, they gave me a bill of N7,000. They said it was for my feeding for the seven days I spent. I never ate their food. We argued but I ended up paying that money. That is one of the unnecessary bills I paid. Patients shouldn’t be forced.”
She further complained about the hospital’s water and toilet facilities.
Speaking with Saturday PUNCH on Thursday, a briefed father, Tony John, who said he lost his son at the hospital, also attested to the good standard of the hospital, though he criticised some of its medical services.
John claimed that the hospital’s staff spent over three hours before a file was opened for his son, just as he condemned what he described as dirtiness and bad water in the hospital.
“Poor electricity was a very serious issue. At the ICU, on the day my boy passed on, I bought 10 litres of fuel for them with a keg.”
Meanwhile, the acting Public Relations Officer of the hospital, Elabha Meni, denied all the claims of the patients and others, stating they were not correct.
Meni said the hospital didn’t experience power outages, just as the emergency areas never shut down.
“Power doesn’t disrupt our services in any way. How can power disrupt surgical procedures when operations are going on? Most times, people base their reports on social media, which isn’t correct,” Meni said.
Justifying the food charges by the hospital, Meni said, “There is inpatient feeding for every patient admitted for diabetes, and the food we give them goes with the treatment. As for the cost, I don’t know what it is. Every hospital has its policies. That is our policy, and they will have to follow it. It is for treatment, and people have to eat certain things.
“If anybody is found wanting on these allegations, through an investigation by the hospital, a decision will be taken because we deal with life. Life can’t be bought, and the management values life.”
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