Eket Residents Fumes Over Dearth Of Manpower At Immanuel Lutheran General Hospital
By Our Reporter
Residents of Eket im Eket local government area of Akwa Ibom states have lamented the dearth of medical personnel at Immanuel Lutheran General Hospital.
Some of the residents, who took their patients to the hospital, noted that the hospital is currently understaffed.
THE BEAGLE NEWS investigations revealed many of the hospital staff had left the place unceremoniously, with no records indicating that they left for transfer.
It was learnt that the shortage of staff is affecting the patients and hospital operations and this development has led to referring the patients elsewhere.
Lamenting the manpower shortage, a staff who pleaded anonymity, attributed it to poor welfare while disclosing that more than 10 of their colleagues have left the services for other good paid jobs in private hospitals.
She said apart from poor remuneration, other challenges faced by doctors and auxiliary health workers , include "non-implementation of promotion for doctors and annual salary increments; non-implementation of minimum wage and consequential adjustments, non-implementation of the reviewed hazard allowances, inadequate manpower and overwork of doctors.
“How can only two doctors handle an entire local government area of over 150,000 population? The workload is too much.
"The government should employ more doctors and introduce incentives in order to encourage health workers to continue to give their best to patients in the hospital.”she added.
"Unless something urgent is done, the healthcare system will collapse due to the sharp deficit of medical doctors and other auxiliary health workers."
Another resident, Ubong Abasi Abasi, who works in the hospital, said: "For now, Immanuel Lutheran General Hospital is currently facing a dearth of medical personnel.
"Perhaps, the reason behind this action by the doctors is the economic situation in the land which the government needs to address in good time.
"We hereby call on the government to intervene on the problem to avoid imminent collapse of the health system in the area.
"From what we are experiencing, the failure to arrest the ugly trend would spell doom for the hospital and the state."
