LUTH Resident Doctor Cries Out Concerning Management's Shabby Treatment Of Doctors

This is a cry FOR HELP that should be looked into by the Appropriate Authorities because of the issues raised therein......Otherwise we would continue to have Medical casualties like the case of Ngozi Udebu which is used as an example in this cry for help.

 #RIPNgoziUdebu and all others who perished in Hospitals that should have saved their lives!.

''Dear Stella,

I do hope you are doing good? Thanks for the good work you've been doing both home and abroad. I would appreciate it if you could publish this on your blog.

As a medical doctor working and doing a residency program in Nigeria, (Lagos precisely) one has to be extra strong to survive, thrive and excel in the program. Lagos itself is a place filled with enough stress and adversity. Health has been defined by the WHO as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

 I must tell you Stella, the residents in the department of Internal Medicine in Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) are unwell and may be so for months to come judging by the definition above. 

Internal Medicine in most hospitals see close to 70% of the patient load. The hospital has just come up with anew policy in the department mandating all units in internal medicine to be on call everyday. This means that residents in the eight units of internal medicine (Respiratory, Neurology, Cardiology, Nephrology, Hematology, Endocrinology, Dermatology and Gastroenterology) are on call in the hospital everyday with only about two call rooms. 

We are expected to 'manage' and sleep in our cars at times with poor toilets and mushin boys lurking around to steal your valuables.

 The way internal medicine was structured normally is that a unit is on call each day out of the aforementioned eight units who manages the patient and calls the appropriate unit involved to see the next day and takeover the management. This is what is done in saner climes and even other teaching hospitals in Nigeria.

 The hospitals abroad that practice specialized calls have adequate facilities to cater for the doctors on ground at work. Internal Medicine is one of those specialties that everyone passes through a general training and thus is equipped to manage and stabilize any  medical case that is brought into the hospital.

 The hospital is saying that Surgery does specialized calls...but the hospital has easily forgotten that 70% of the patient load that comes are usually medical cases.

Residents are breaking down, some may need to be in the hospital every other day for a month making it half of the month to sleep in. Patients will be mismanaged as the doctor is not healthy.

 Residents are getting to the point where they are thinking of withdrawing from the program The hospital needs to understand that this will be counterproductive as ultimately patient care would be compromised. Several meetings have been called...yet the management is adamant. 

LUTH was in the limelight a while back about a patient that died and most of the complaints laid by the husband of the deceased were administrative and structural problems. The genesis of this new rule (which they know is just eye service to look good to the public) is the case highlighted Why then must the residents be made to suffer for it?

 If we do such specialized calls, the labs are not working overnight, CT scan is not working. What magic are we supposed to perform by putting ourselves at risk sleeping in our cars? Those that don't have cars should probably sleep on the corridors? 

Our consultants are not saying anything...everyone is just going with the flow. Studies have shown that more medical errors occur when there is intense stress on the part of the doctors 

It is not okay. Younger doctors are humans too and this is a cry for help through you that it is a recipe for disaster for both the doctors and the patients.

Thank you Stella. Keep up the good work. 

Concerned Resident''.