Connaught Hospital Fast Becoming Death Trap
By Mackie M Jalloh
Whilst many residents in Sierra Leone believe that the main referral hospital Connaught Teaching Hospital should provide the necessary attention for sick people, as highly espoused by the Minister of Health and the government, the opposite seem to be the case. For many, going to Connaught is like signing one’s death warrant, and one can count himself lucky to emerge from that facility alive.
In the first place, when a sick patient is brought to the facility, if he does not have money, no attention is given, he is left to die, or if lucky, some humanitarian may come to his help in getting the nurses to give him attention, registering him for further attention by a medical doctor. Then the trouble begins.
On Monday 20th February 2023, at around 12pm, an out-patient was taken to the Connaught hospital with a serious stomach pain.
According to report, the hospital was careless about the patient who needed an emergency treatment at that moment, but instead was sent to pay a registration fee ofNLe30 before a wheel chair was called for, and surprisingly, there was no wheel chair available for the patient, and the patient was laid on a stretcher. After some time (30 minutes), with the patient reeling in pain, the nurses then took the patient’s blood pressure with a blood pressure machine. End of one phase. The patient was then taken on a stretcher to Ward 7 an outpatient ward, where he had to spend another one hour outside the ward, as the staff explained that there was no bed for observation in the ward. After another spending one hour out of the ward, a medical doctor suddenly surfaced and instructed that the patient be taken for an X-Ray.
Still in pain on the stretcher, the patient was wheeled to the X-Ray room, where he met other patients being X-Rayed, and had to wait for another 30 minutes before he was finally X-Rayed. He was then taken to Ward 7 again to be observed. Again outside the said ward, on the excuse that there was no available bed in the ward. Still in pain and crying for help, one good Samaritan surfaced, and through his intervention, was able to get a bed for the patient in the ward. Another problem surfaced, as the patient was told that there was no bed sheet, resulting in the good Samaritan going out to buy a bed sheet. With his intervention, medical attention was given and drugs prescribed, including several tests done.
What is of concern is the fact that had there been no one to intervene in favour of the patient, that patient may have died or something disastrous happen to him. What this shows is that prompt medical attention is absent at Connaught Hospital, and any ordinary man going for any emergency attention will either die or suffer pain until a Good Samaritan surfaces. Better still, a patient will get immediate attention if he has cash to throw around. Could this be the reason for the many deaths at the facility?
Continuing with the story of the above patient: after leaving observation ward, he was told to go to a private hospital to do a scan, after which he should come with the result to the doctor. On the following day after doing all the tests and the scanning, the patient collected all the results from the tests and the scan and went to the doctor. To his surprise, the doctor’s Secretary told the patient that coming at 9:30 am, he was late for the doctor to see him, and should come the next day. On the next day, before 8:00 am, the patient arrived at the hospital, but the doctor was not around, and after waiting again for some time, the secretary then surfaced and told him that the doctor will only be available on the following Mondays, except if it is on a private appointment, but for outpatient, he should come on the next Monday.
Connaught Hospital has been a place where Doctors and Nurses have no respect for patients or care for anything called emergency, it has been morethan one week now since that emergency visit to the hospital. Currently, the patient is yet to know the reason for the acute stomach pain he suffered that took him to the hospital.
The case of this patient is the case of many patients going to the main referral hospital in Freetown, for medical attention. Some of their cases are even worse than this one, and it is no wonder that the hospital is recording high mortality cases.
Similar situation was explained by a Member of Parliament in the House, where he took a pregnant woman to the PCMH in the night and saw nurses playing with their phones instead of attending to patients. He was kept waiting and all sorts of excuses given for their failure to offer attention to the patient, and it was after he disclosed his identity as a Member of Parliament that frantic efforts were made to see his patient. When in the hospital, the MP discovered that some nurses on night duty do not sleep in their area of deployment, and are looked for in other areas to attend to patients, little wonder then that there are so many infant and maternal deaths recorded each year. The same thing applies to anyone taking patients to that facility, you either have money or your patient dies. It is like the Hippocratic oath taken by medical practitioners does not work in Sierra Leone.
