Nigeria’s extinct emergency medical services
Sir: Former Nigerian international Michael Eneramo died on April 24, after collapsing during a match in Kaduna State. His death in such tragic circumstances plunged Nigeria’s sports community into mourning.
- By Ike Willie-Nwobu
Sir: Former Nigerian international Michael Eneramo died on April 24, after collapsing during a match in Kaduna State. His death in such tragic circumstances plunged Nigeria’s sports community into mourning.
It was not clear if the player who scored goals for the Super Eagles as well as football clubs in Tunisia and Turkey had any underlying heart condition. While no one is certain that Eneramo would have survived if he were anywhere else but in Nigeria, what emerged from the fatal match was Nigeria’s stark lack of emergency medicine and the many Nigerians who continue to lose their lives daily as a result.
Indeed, many Nigerians have difficult stories to tell, and it is not just those Nigerians who have lost loved ones who managed to get to a hospital. Many people who lost loved ones who needed emergency medical attention all tell a familiar story. A loved one slips into an emergency, and the only urgency is coming from his immediate loved ones, who often can’t do much. Often, before emergency medical attention comes, life slips away, leaving survivors full of pain and regret.
Nigeria’s costly lack of critical infrastructure is well documented. Roads, rail, schools, and hospitals are simply not adequate to service an ever-increasing population.
So, what happens when a citizen needs urgent medical attention? Where are the air ambulances, and ventilators? Where are the professionals trained in emergency medicine? Often times, these critical life-saving resources are absent from the picture, with only death fully present.
For many Nigerians, any emergency at all often translates to death or catastrophic losses. Whether it is a fire outbreak or a health emergency, help is often unreachable with a system that is fatally primed to respond ever so slowly.
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Emergency services or medicine do not and cannot exist in isolation. The whole concept of emergency medicine is a box that contains human resources, infrastructure, supreme professionalism, empathy, and on and on. Without one, the others will just collapse like a pack of cards.
The many needless deaths resulting from situations where patients need urgent medical attention also shine a harsh light on the chilling lack of access to quality healthcare that many Nigerians suffer. For many Nigerians, especially those who dwell in rural areas, getting to a hospital is often a long and arduous journey, one steeped in uncertainty and chaos.
The less said about Nigeria’s acute shortage of qualified medical personnel, the better. Every year, despite its aching shortage, Nigeria continues to do nothing to silence the relentless siren calls of superior wages, security, and working conditions from other countries. As a result, a critically understaffed and underfunded sector continues to miss opportunities to get better.
The challenge is one the government must take seriously. Many Nigerians die from medical emergencies that simple procedures administered urgently could have prevented. Curbing these needless deaths should be a priority. But it is doubtful that it will ever happen in a country where public officers fly to far countries whenever they feel an itch or notice an acne.
•Ike Willie-Nwobu,
Ikewilly9@gmail.com.
